Rice: Iran ‘central bank for terrorism’

Wednesday meeting
The five countries met in New York on Wednesday to discuss a first response to the crisis.

Washington is seeking harsh measures against Iran, but economic and political sanctions are unlikely because of opposition from Russia and China, which have strategic and commercial ties with Tehran.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns suggested Wednesday that America would push for sanctions if appeals and demands failed.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that Moscow would not support sanctions and he ruled out military action.

Wednesday’s IAEA meeting featured an intense debate over a critical report on Iran’s nuclear program. Soon after the meeting ended, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he would send the report to the Security Council within 24 hours.

A continuation of diplomacy?
ElBaradei, however, cast Security Council involvement as a continuation of diplomacy with Iran. He suggested Washington might need to talk to Iran directly if negotiations reach the stage of focusing on security guarantees to Tehran in exchange for concessions on its nuclear program.

ElBaradei’s report accused Iran of withholding information, possessing plans linked to nuclear weapons and refusing to freeze uranium enrichment — a possible pathway to nuclear arms.

Tehran’s newspapers published news of the decision on their front pages Thursday. The official Persian-language daily Iran called the move “a message of weakness and failure” by the nuclear agency.

Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful and only aimed at generating electricity, but an increasing number of countries have come to share the U.S. view that Tehran is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

The U.S. and its European allies want Iran to give up uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or materials for a nuclear bomb.

Iran has rejected the demand, saying it will never give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.

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