AFP: Iran has no fear of being referred to the UN Security Council and will not change its nuclear policy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on state television Monday. AFP
TEHRAN – Iran has no fear of being referred to the UN Security Council and will not change its nuclear policy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on state television Monday.
“Our position remains the same and will not change. They are doing what they have to do and we are doing what we have to do,” he said, on Western efforts to have Iran referred to the Security Council over its nuclear programme.
“The Iranian people will retain their rights and nothing special will happen,” he said.
In Vienna, Europe’s top three powers distributed a draft resolution at the UN atomic watchdog Monday calling for Iran to be reported to the Security Council this week over its nuclear fuel work, diplomats told AFP.
“We’re going for referral this week,” a Western diplomat said, confirming that the United States, as well as EU negotiating trio Britain, France and Germany, had lost patience with Iran.
The Security Council could use measures ranging from resolutions to trade sanctions to try to get Tehran to stop making nuclear reactor fuel and to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The emergence of the draft resolution ends weeks of speculation about the West’s tactics following Iran’s resumption of nuclear fuel work last month.
That work torpedoed talks with the so-called EU-3 aimed at obtaining guarantees from Iran that it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons, as the United States claims it is.
