Iran’s nuclear standoff with the European Union and the United States took a dangerous turn Tuesday, August 2, with the Islamic republic insisting its decision to resume activities at a sensitive nuclear plant was irreversible, drawing warnings from Europe’s big three and threats from Washington.”The political decision has been taken. We have handed over the letter to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The resumption is irreversible,” Supreme National Security Council spokesman Ali Aghamohammadi told Reuters.
“I deny reports of any delay,” he added.
Iran said it had received no response from the European Union to its offer of new talks by the deadline it set of 07″30 GMT Monday, and had told the UN’s nuclear watchdog that it would break the agency’s seals on equipment at a uranium conversion plant near the central city of Esfahan and resume work there.
Aghamohammadi did not say the Iranians had actually broken the seals placed at the plant by UN inspectors — which would be a more decisive defiance.
The conversion plant turns uranium ore into gas. The gas is then enriched into fuel that could be used either in power stations or to make nuclear weapons.
Iran has always defended itself as having a right to develop peaceful atomic technology.
Threats
De Villepin threatened to refer the issue to the UN Security Council if Tehran maintained its reluctant stance.
On the other hand, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday Iran must live up to its commitment with the EU or face UN Security Council retribution, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Iran must honor the commitments it has made. These commitments are commitments suspending all activity, conversion, treatment and enrichment of uranium,” Villepin told Europe 1 radio.
If Tehran refuses, “the international community will be forced to draw up consequences…with consensus, with dialogue,” he said.
“Will the Security Council have to be called on if Iran refuses to comply?”
His Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said that Iran’s decision may spark “a major international crisis.”
“The Iran matter seems very serious to me — it may trigger a major international crisis because, if Iran doesn’t go back on its decision, then Iran will be, I would say, in a purely unilateral position,” he told reporters Tuesday after a cabinet meeting chaired by President Jacques Chirac.
In the United States, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said if Iran restarted activities at the Esfahan plant “we would have to look to the Security Council”.
The so-called EU-3 of Britain, France and Germany have been trying to mediate between Tehran and Washington, which insists Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons.
The big three have been due to send Tehran a package of proposals by early this month for nuclear, economic and political incentives provided Iran renounces nuclear enrichment-related activities.
Some EU officials speculated Iran might be creating a mini-crisis that President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could defuse by calling at his inauguration Saturday, August 6, for more time for negotiation.
This could make him appear statesmanlike and soften his image as an anti-Western hardliner.
10 Years Away
But in another sign the issue may be heading to more escalation, The Washington Post said Tuesday, quoting US officials with access to a new intelligence review, that Iran is some 10 years away from manufacturing highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear device.
Ordered by the National Intelligence Council in January, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran doubles the amount of time the White House believes Iran is away from building a nuclear weapon from five years in the previous estimate in 2001, the daily said.
The estimate, designed to alert the US president to national security developments, said there were credible indicators that Iran’s military was conducting clandestine work, but nothing to indicate they were related to a nuclear weapons program, according to sources familiar with the report.
The report also expresses uncertainty about whether Iran’s leaders have made a decision to build a nuclear arsenal, although it agrees that, left to its own devices, Iran would pursue the nuclear weapons path.
On Iran’s political future, the US administration keeps “hoping the mullahs will leave before Iran gets a nuclear weapons capability,” a US official familiar with the intelligence review told the daily.
A US bipartisan presidential panel reported in March that US intelligence on Iran