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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday. (AP)
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| By Associated Press August 31, 2006 |
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President George W. Bush assailed Iran's defiance of the U.N. Security Council Thursday, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying it will not be bullied on its right to uranium enrichment ahead of an International Atomic Energy Agency report that could trigger sanctions against Tehran.
Bush insisted Thursday that "there must be consequences" for Iran's defiance of demands that it stop enriching uranium. He said "the world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran," demonstrated by the war between Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants and Israel.
"The Iranian nation will not accept for one moment any bullying, invasion and violation of its rights," Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in Orumiyeh in northwestern Iran, as the clock ticked down on Thursday's Security Council ultimatum for a freeze on enrichment.
Iran could theoretically still announce a halt to enrichment before the deadline expires. But that appeared unlikely, considering Tehran's past refusal to consider such a move, and findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was enriching small quantities of uranium as late as Tuesday.
Iran's refusal to heed the Security Council will be detailed in the IAEA report and circulated among the Vienna-based agency's 35 board member nations along with new details on Tehran's research into advanced enrichment equipment and other details, said diplomats accredited to the agency. They, as well as European and U.N. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential.
Once the report is tabled, the Security Council could begin to actively consider economic and political sanctions because it had asked the agency to report on Tehran's compliance with meeting the Aug. 31 deadline to freeze enrichment.
Sanctions will not come immediately, with permanent council members Russia and China likely to resist U.S.-led efforts for a quick response. Negotiations over earlier Iran motions took weeks.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said Tuesday the United States still has not decided how it will respond once the Aug. 31 deadline expires. But he reiterated that Washington will seek sanctions if Iran disregards the resolution.
Even Moscow and Beijing, keen to offset U.S. influence, and have traditional economic and strategic ties with Tehran, are increasingly vexed at what world powers consider Iranian intransigence on enrichment, a process that can generate both nuclear energy and create the fissile core of warheads.
In another sign of Iran's willingness to confront the international community, a senior European government official said Tehran has not responded to a recent European Union offer on behalf of the five Security Council members plus Germany to discuss Tehran's terms for new nuclear talks. Such behavior will likely intensify Washington's push for sanctions.
Earlier, Ahmadinejad urged European members of the council against resorting to sanctions, saying punishment would not dissuade his country from pursuing its disputed nuclear program.
"Sanctions cannot dissuade the Iranian nation from achieving our lofty goals of progress. So it's better for Europe to be independent (of the U.S.) in decision-making and to settle problems through negotiations," Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, according to state-run television.
Inspectors for the Vienna-based IAEA remained in Iran on Wednesday as they continued gathering information for Thursday's restricted report. A senior U.N. official said Iranian centrifuges were enriching small quantities of uranium gas as late as Tuesday.
Iran insists it has a right to enrich for what it says is a future nuclear power program. There is increasing concern, however, that Tehran could enrich material to the level required for weapons.
Echoing widespread suspicions, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed concern that Iran may be pursuing nuclear weapons, in remarks published Thursday.
"At the moment, Iran has no use whatsoever for enriched uranium -- unless it is planning to build the bomb. And we must prevent an Iran nuclear bomb," Steinmeier was quoted as saying in the Bild daily.
Steinmeier said the Security Council could impose "restrictions" on Iran if it doesn't comply with U.N. demands, but offered no details of what they could look like.
Outlining other details in the IAEA report that the U.S. and its allies will likely seize on, diplomats said the four to five-page document will confirm:
-- that IAEA inspectors were recently barred from inspecting a vast underground facility at Natanz being built to house up to 54,000 centrifuges that spin uranium gas into enriched material. While Tehran's centrifuge program is hamstrung by technical problems, The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security has suggested that -- if it were interested in producing bombs -- Iran could create a basic small plant of 1,500 centrifuges, to make enough bomb fuel for one weapon within three years.
-- that for now, Iran's largest known enrichment capabilities consist of 164 centrifuges connected in series at its surface pilot plant at Natanz which has been used to turn out small quantities of low-enriched uranium. But the report will reveal new details of the country's centrifuge program, including confirmation from Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani that scientists are doing computer-based research on a more advanced type of centrifuge that works faster and turn out larger quantities of enriched uranium.
The report also focus on lack of progress in investigating suspicious findings, including diagrams showing how to mold fissile uranium into the shape of warheads because of Iran's refusal to provide more information, they said.
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