UN raises pressure on Iran as suspicions deepen

The UN nuclear watchdog sharply rebuked Iran yesterday for failing to cooperate fully with its inspectors, as diplomats said UN investigators were probing the possibility Tehran was hiding another atomic site.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors said the board "deplores... the fact that, overall... Iran's cooperation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been."

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he would also seek more information from Iran about satellite images showing the razing of buildings at a site in Tehran, raising the possibility it was hiding another atomic installation.

The United States says Iran's nuclear programme is a front for building an atomic weapon, a charge Iran denies.

The IAEA effectively returned the ball to Iran's court, two days after President Mohammad Khatami condemned the draft resolution and said Tehran would no longer be under any moral obligation to maintain its suspension of uranium enrichment.

Any resumption of enrichment - a process of purifying uranium for use in nuclear power plants or, if carried far enough, in bombs - would provoke a major crisis.

"We're entering a very, very dangerous period where Iran will be tempted to resume its enrichment programme, believing the United States is paralysed because of Iraq and the US elections and that the Europeans won't be prepared to carry out in any serious way their threats to retaliate," said Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

The IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, has been probing Iran since August 2002 and has pushed it to be fully open with UN inspectors as they struggle to reduce the spread of weapons of mass destruction in an increasingly unstable Middle East.

In Tehran, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told state television: "We believe the agency acted based on the pressure from some of the political centres, particularly America."

US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said the resolution "will keep Iran's nuclear programme and its efforts to deceive and obstruct IAEA inspectors at the centre of international attention for quite some time."

But US envoy Kenneth Brill warned delegates against allowing Tehran to spin out unresolved issues indefinitely, saying "every passing day" brought it "closer to producing the enriched uranium needed for nuclear bombs".

ElBaradei told reporters: "By the end of the year we will have been doing an inspection in Iran for two years and I think that's long enough time for us to be able to provide the international community with assurances they urgently need.

Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington said for the time being, the policy of joint pressure on Iran by the United States and the European Union "big three" of Britain, France and Germany appeared to be working.

"I don't think Iran is driving this train. Right now it's the board of governors of the IAEA who are in control," he said.

He said the threat of EU trade and economic sanctions against Iran would provide a powerful incentive for Iran to continue to cooperate. The United States is also holding in reserve the option of pushing for Iran's referral to the UN Security Council, which could impose its own sanctions.