US President George W. Bush on Friday called Iran a "grave national security concern," but said he was seeking a diplomatic way to cap its nuclear goals.
A hard-line cleric said in Tehran earlier that Bush was using the nuclear issue to further his goal of overthrowing Iran.
At the UN, the five permanent members of the Security Council ended a meeting on how to persuade Iran to suspend uranium enrichment-related activities, but there was no sign they had agreed on a statement.
The Security Council has begun to tackle Iran's case after the UN nuclear watchdog sent the 15 members a report on Wednesday saying it could not verify that Iran's atomic activities were peaceful.
Bush said US concerns were the result of Iran's stated desire to destroy Israel and Washington's belief that Tehran wants to build nuclear bombs -- something the Iranians deny.
"You begin to see an issue of grave national security concern," Bush told a newspaper group.
"Therefore it's very important for the United States to continue to work with others to solve these issues diplomatically, deal with these threats today," he said.
"Bush talks of regime change or change of its behavior, which is the same. It means no Islamic regime," said senior cleric Ahmad Khatami in a sermon.
Meanwhile EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana spoke for the first time publicly of possible sanctions against Iran.
Asked if EU foreign ministers meeting in Salzburg, Austria, would discuss the issue, Solana told reporters: "No. We are talking about a gradual approach to give some room still for diplomacy."
Bush said he assumed the threat was related to the US need for imported energy resources. "For national security purposes we have got to become ... not addicted to oil," he added.
Meanwhile, the five veto-holding members of the UN Security Council considered proposals to pressure Iran to resolve questions about its nuclear program, including demands that it abandon uranium enrichment and stop construction on a reactor, diplomats said.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who