AFP: The United States called on the international community Tuesday to consider possible actions against Iran following its reluctance in talks with the European Union to drop its sensitive nuclear activities. The State Department said the only way for Iran to address concerns over its nuclear program was to agree to a permanent halt in uranium enrichment — a fuel process which can assist in the operation of nuclear power stations but also produces material for nuclear weapons. AFP
WASHINGTON – The United States called on the international community Tuesday to consider possible actions against Iran following its reluctance in talks with the European Union to drop its sensitive nuclear activities.
The State Department said the only way for Iran to address concerns over its nuclear program was to agree to a permanent halt in uranium enrichment — a fuel process which can assist in the operation of nuclear power stations but also produces material for nuclear weapons.
“Unfortunately, we’ve not seen that kind of attitude from Iran, and we may have to consider what other action to take if Iran does not fulfill its obligations,” department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
He did not elaborate but among options available is hauling Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
Britain, France and Germany are trying to convince Iran to halt its work on the nuclear fuel cycle — including the sensitive process of enriching uranium — in return for a package of incentives covering trade, security and technology.
The EUs “big three” see a halt in enrichment as the only way Iran can provide the objective guarantees needed to convince the many sceptics that it is not seeking to use an atomic enrgy drive as a means of also developing the capability to develop a bomb.
As talks to break the impasse between Iran and the EU resumed Tuesday in the Swiss city of Geneva, Teheran asserted that it had gone far enough in providing “objective guarantees” that its nuclear program was purely peaceful and warned that a EU refusal to accept this would bring negotiations to a dead-end.
The United States maintains that Iran is trying to covertly develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists that its programme is purely meant to meet civilian energy needs.
Iran agreed in November to suspend enrichment as a “confidence-building measure”, but insists the freeze will only be temporary.
Boucher said that as required by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, Iran should “fully comply with its obligations.
“It needs to sign the additional protocol. It needs to turn this temporary suspension into a permanent cessation of enrichment activities,” he said.
Boucher stressed that Iran had an obligation now to reassure the international community that its statements about not seeking nuclear weapons “are true.”
The way to do that, he said, was through the IAEA and the EU-3 package that had been put together.
“So the posturing by Iran is not going to get them anywhere. Refusal by Iran to do this, that and the other is not going to get them anywhere.
“The only way Iran is going to get anywhere with the Europeans or with the rest of the world is by accepting freely its obligations and undertaking to fulfill them,” Boucher added.
