EU and US agree strategy over Iranian nuclear threat

EU and US leaders have agreed to increase pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear programme following last week’s decision to resume construction of centrifuges which are crucial to building a nuclear bomb.

The two powers, during their summit in Dromoland, were in broad agreement that Iran is posing an increasingly greater threat.

A senior Irish Government source said it was obvious that after Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran was next in the sights of the US.

"The EU is very concerned, though not as forcibly as President Bush. The big three, Britain, France and Germany, believe Iran is not co-operating with the nuclear inspections and the US firmly believes they are developing nuclear weapons," he said.

The heightened concern has led them all to agree to co-operate on measures, including at the UN.

Both the EU and the US are anxious not to repeat the Iraq scenario when they became deeply divided. "They are going to play this by the book the US in particular," the source said.

US President George W Bush two years ago referred to Iran as part of the three axis of evil with North Korea and Iraq.

The joint statement issued after the summit called on Iran to change its decision, announced last Thursday, to resume construction of centrifuges despite an agreement with France, Germany and Britain not to do so for three months.

The EU's big three also convinced Iran to suspend uranium enrichment last year as one of a number of confidence-building measures and to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out inspections.

Yesterday, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice described Iran as a dangerous state that has been trying to acquire military uses for nuclear power, probably nuclear weapons, for a long time.

"The Iranians demonstrate every day why the United States has been so hard on them and why the president has put them in the axis of evil when he talked about Iraq, North Korea and Iran back in his State of the Union address in January 2002. We have been very clear that these rogue states that seek weapons of mass destruction are a danger," she said following the EU US summit.

Last week the atomic energy agency, the IAEA, accepted a draft resolution drawn up by the three EU countries, criticising Iran for refusing to co-operate with the UN inspectors.