Iran 'will not comply with a UN nuclear resolution'

ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to report that Iran has refused to suspend all uranium enrichment, which can be used to generate electricity, but also in nuclear weapons.

In anticipation of the report, US Ambassador John Bolton has already said he planned to introduce a resolution requiring Tehran to comply with the council’s demands.

The resolution would not call for sanctions now, but would be introduced under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows for sanctions at a later point and is militarily enforceable.

Asked how Iran would respond to such a resolution, Zarif replied: “Wellif the Security Council decides to take decisions that are not within its competence, then Iran does not feel obliged to obey.”

He maintained that the Security Council was not competent to deal with Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme “because it has been stated again and again by everybody who’s familiar with this issue that this is not a threat, not imminent ... that Iran’s programme has shown no indication of being anything but peaceful,” the Iranian ambassador said yesterday.

“Therefore the proper context for the discussion of this issue is within the IAEA,” he said. “It is not within the competence of the Security Council to deal with this issue and the Security Council will be simply eroding its authority by adopting any decision that does not fall within its competence.”

The US has long pushed for the Security Council to take responsibility for the Iranian nuclear issue, but Russia and China, both veto-wielding council members, oppose sanctions and back Iran in wanting the IAEA to remain in the lead.

Bolton said if a Chapter VII resolution was adopted, the council “would be determining that there’s a threat to international peace and security” and its provisions would be legally binding.

But whether the deeply divided council will agree remains in question.

China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said he did not expect any serious discussion until after a May 2 meeting in Paris of political directors of the six key parties negotiating on Iran – the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – and a follow-up meeting of their foreign ministers, which is likely to take place on May 9 at UN headquarters in New York.

Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to have a civilian nuclear energy programme – which Tehran insists is all it wants. But the US and key European nations suspect its real motive is to ultimately build nuclear weapons.

In recent days as the release of ElBaradei’s report has approached, US and Iranian officials have been trading accusations.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed yesterday that “no one” could make Iran give up its nuclear technology. Earlier in the week Iran offered to transfer nuclear technology to other countries, including conflict-wracked Sudan.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly raised suspicions of Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, demanding Security Council action, and she reacted with concen this week to Tehran’s plans to export nuclear technology.

Zarif insisted that Iran would much prefer a peaceful resolution of the nuclear dispute and he blamed the United States for escalating the war of words.

“We’re not upping the ante,” he said. “We’re simply responding to others upping the ante. What do you expect the country from doing? Should we simply raise our hands and say, ‘OK we surrender. Thank you very much for all the threats and we’re absorbing the threats and thinking about it?”’

Zarif said if Security Council action was frozen, Iran was prepared to go back to the offer it made last year in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.

It includes presenting the additional IAEA protocol to Parliament for ratification which allows unannounced inspections of nuclear facilities; introducing legislation to permanently ban the production, stockpiling, development and use of nuclear weapons; instituting a phased approach on enrichment activities at Iranian facilities; and declaring that Iran will not reprocess plutonium, Zarif said.

Iran was also prepared to cap its uranium enrichment at 3.5% – high enough to produce electricity, but not high enough to produce a nuclear weapon. The government also proposed that IAEA monitors be allowed at all sensitive facilities and suggested that it work with the European negotiators on export controls, he said.

A Russian proposal to move Tehran’s uranium enrichment to Russian territory “is still alive,” Zarif said, “and Iran is prepared to consider any proposal that will guarantee Iran’s rights.”