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Iran defiant at any UN action

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reiterated yesterday that his country would never suspend uranium enrichment -- a move that the US says is essential for Washington-Tehran negotiations.

"Demands that Iran halt enrichment are illegal and illegitimate and based on an incorrect political strategy. This [suspension] will never materialize," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mottaki as telling a conference in the capital Tehran.

However, Iran is prepared to negotiate about its nuclear program "without any preconditions," he said.

Iran suspended enrichment activities in 2003 as a goodwill gesture toward negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, but it resumed the process in January of last year when it concluded that the talks were leading nowhere.

Enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear reactors but uranium enriched to a high degree is used to make atomic bombs.

The US and some of its allies object to Iran's enrichment process because they believe it is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.

Iran denies this, saying its enrichment is solely so that it can be self-sufficient in fuel for its Russian-built nuclear reactor.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated this weekend that she would negotiate with Mottaki as soon as Iran had suspended enrichment.

But Washington's making suspension a precondition for talks was criticized by two opinion-makers at a conference on international security in New York on Monday.

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said the US condition for negotiations was "humiliating" for Iran.

"This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards," Blix said.

And a former official from the US State Department, Richard Haass, who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, said the call for stopping enrichment should not be allowed to "torpedo diplomacy."

But Haass also criticized Iran for defying the UN Security Council, which has repeatedly called on Tehran to stop enrichment.

The Security Council's Big Five members plus Germany began talks on Monday on taking further steps against Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had ignored demands for a suspension and instead had expanded its enrichment program.

In December the Security Council imposed limited sanctions on Iran.

New resolution

The permanent members of the UN Security Council could soon agree a new resolution ordering sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said yesterday.

Douste-Blazy said a quick new resolution was "highly likely." But the French minister said "there must be a second resolution" after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran was "very, very far" from conforming with a Security Council resolution that gave it until last week to halt uranium enrichment.

He also said he was confident that following a meeting on Monday of six world powers in London on the Iran dispute agreement on a resolution could be achieved.

"It is highly likely that we can quickly agree together -- the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans, the British and the French -- on a second resolution with economic sanctions," the minister said in an interview with LCI television.

China

China said yesterday that diplomacy and peaceful negotiation were the key to ending the standoff with the UN over Iran's nuclear program.

"Our position is consistent," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) said. "We advocate a solution through diplomatic means and peaceful negotiation."
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