Veiled ultimatum issued to Iran over nuclear programme

By Albert Otti Nov 18, 2011, 17:17 GMT

Vienna - The board of the UN's nuclear agency set a veiled ultimatum for Iran Friday when it urged the country in a resolution to respond to 'deep and increasing concerns' that it is developing a nuclear weapon.

It was the first formal international response to a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which laid out various indications last week that Iran has been working to develop a nuclear weapon.

The resolution did not ask the United Nations Security Council to take up the matter, but it did call on IAEA chief Yukiya Amano to report by March whether Iran has responded to the allegations.

Several Western countries and Israel have called for additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it does not quickly shed light on its nuclear activities.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Friday again threatened 'unprecedented' punitive measures.

However, Tehran's envoy Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh in Vienna said Iran would not heed the resolution and called the latest report 'unprofessional, unbalanced, illegal and politicized.'

He added his country would now evaluate whether to let senior inspectors travel to Iran to resolve the question of a military programme, as suggested by Director General Amano on Thursday.

'Everything is messed up by the director general's decision (to issue his report),' Soltanieh told reporters, adding that routine IAEA inspections of the uranium enrichment programme would continue.

Iran would not take part in a forum on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East in Vienna next week, the envoy said, adding that the decision was linked to the report and the resolution.

Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they would carry out an air defence drill simulating an Israeli strike on its nuclear sites.

Amano's report has raised concerns that Israel, which sees Iranian nuclear arms as an existential threat, might attack the Islamic Republic.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he would talk to his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Canada Friday about potential 'unintended consequences' of such an operation, the daily New York Times reported.

The United States, France and Germany welcomed the IAEA resolution.

It was backed by a majority of 32 of the 35 countries on the IAEA board of governors.

It said: 'The Board of Governors ... expresses deep and increasing concern about the unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program, including those which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions.'

Russia and China also supported it, despite their misgivings that the IAEA's publication of the evidence against Iran might lead to a diplomatic or military escalation of the nuclear standoff.

Iran says the intelligence findings that are contained in the IAEA report are fabricated and maintains that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

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