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US, EU remain at odds over Iran's nuclear policy

Europe and the US were at odds on Monday over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program, as Israel's intelligence chief said it posed a threat to the very survival of the Jewish state.

The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Brussels that Iran had been honest so far over its nuclear programme and he hoped it would not be reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

But the US disputed Solana's conclusion on the program, which Washington says is designed to make nuclear weapons -- a charge Tehran strongly denies, saying its nuclear policy is entirely peaceful and devoted to generating power.

In Washington ahead of a trip to Europe, US Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed surprise at Solana's comment, saying: "I wouldn't have gone quite as far."

Powell, due to meet EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday, reiterated the State Department's stand that a leaked report from the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which said Iran was not developing nuclear arms was impossible to believe.

With time running out before a Board of Governors' meeting of the Vienna-based IAEA on Thursday, France, Britain and Germany have circulated a draft resolution for the board which does not meet US demands, diplomats said.

Iran has been under pressure from the IAEA to explain its nuclear policy and explain traces of enriched uranium on some equipment. Oil- and gas-rich Tehran says its nuclear programme is for power generation but the US is sceptical.

Washington wants the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and escalate the issue by reporting Tehran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

A diplomat from one IAEA board member state said the Security Council was not mentioned in the draft by the European trio. Nor was non-compliance, violation or breaches of the NPT.

"None of those words is used. It's very weak," he said. That is unlikely to satisfy Washington.

Powell said after meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Washington: "The Iranians have provided us a great deal of information. It confirms what the United States has been saying for some time...that the Iranian nuclear programme was for more than just the production of power, that it had an intent to produce a nuclear weapon."

In Jerusalem, Mossad intelligence chief Meir Dagan warned Israeli legislators that the Iranian program threatened Israel's very existence, an official said.
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