Rice hints at Security Council referral of Iran’s nuke file

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Dec. 16 – Iran may end up facing United Nations Security Council action over its nuclear non-cooperation, if it continues to defy the international community’s demands of suspending sensitive nuclear work, United States Secretary of States Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 16 – Iran may end up facing United Nations Security Council action over its nuclear non-cooperation, if it continues to defy the international community’s demands of suspending sensitive nuclear work, United States Secretary of States Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.

In an interview on Fox News channel, Rice also said that Iran was “out of step with the region”.

She said that Iran was “probably the greatest state sponsor of terrorism, sponsoring the Palestinian rejectionists, sponsoring Hezbollah activities that are violent”.

The U.S. Secretary of State said that nuclear negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the “EU-3” – Britain, France, and Germany – aimed at ensuring Tehran’s nuclear program remained peaceful “have been going nowhere”.

“Iran that is seeking nuclear technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon and seems unrepentant in caring about the will of the international community that Iran shows that they’re not going to seek a nuclear weapon”, Rice said.

“Sooner or later, if Iran does not respond to this diplomacy, we’re going to end up in the Security Council about the Iranian program. It will be at a time of our choosing, but no one is prepared to allow the Iranians to get a nuclear weapon and no one is prepared to let them gain the technological expertise that would leave them in a position to get that nuclear [weapon”>”, she said.

She said that there seemed to be no choice other than Tehran’s referral to the Security Council “if the Iranians don’t demonstrate that they want another way out of this”, adding that she had certainly not seen such a demonstration to date.