Iran’s nuclear chief yesterday accused the UN atomic watchdog’s critical report of pushing Tehran to develop new nuclear facilities, even as France said diplomacy was not working and new international sanctions were needed.
Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi told state radio that Tehran’s decision to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities was necessary after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) resolution on Friday demanded that Iran halt all enrichment activities.
Any new plants would take years to build and stock with centrifuges — if the material could even be obtained under UN sanctions — but the ambitious plans were a bold show by Iran that it won’t back down amid a deadlock in negotiations.
The US and its allies fear the facilities give Iran the capability to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.
French Defense Minister Herve Morin said that after Iran’s decision on Sunday the international community should “probably commit toward new economic sanctions against Iran.”
“It’s clear for weeks that the extended hand of [US President] Barack Obama and the extended hand of the international community, in an approach of transparency ... are not working,” Morin told France-Inter radio yesterday.
“Intelligence services of various countries, and notably French intelligence services, are giving us enough elements to be convinced that this [Iranian nuclear] program does not have civilian ends,” he said.
Meanwhile, Britain could begin mulling new sanctions on Iran next month, a government spokesman said yesterday.
“The priority always is to get the talks to work,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesman said. “We would then review at the right moment, and maybe it’s towards the end of this year, whether we pursue the second route of a dual track policy which is obviously, you think about things like sanctions.”
“But it’s really important that we keep the talks going, because that’s the best way to effect the change that’s necessary,” he said.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker insisted yesterday that a diplomatic solution was possible.
“Still, there is diplomatic opportunity and it is useful for them to use it, under which Iran will continue its [nuclear] work under international surveillance,” he said.
On Sunday, the Cabinet ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to begin building new facilities at five sites that have already been studied and propose five other locations for future construction within two months.
The new sites are to be on the same scale of Iran’s only other industrial enrichment plant currently in operation, near the town of Natanz.
“We had no intention of building many facilities like the Natanz site, but apparently the West doesn’t want to understand Iran’s peaceful message,” Salehi said.
Salehi, who is also the head of Iran’s nuclear program, said the IAEA resolution backed by six world powers left no option for Iran but to give a firm response.
Iran aims to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants in the next 20 years.
Iranian officials say the new enrichment facilities are needed to produce enough fuel for its future nuclear power plants.
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