US: The United States accused Iran yesterday of deceiving UN inspectors over its nuclear arms ambitions, in an attack diplomats said increased pressure on Tehran to accept European demands in talks this month.
France, Britain and Germany, which criticised Tehran for not fully adhering to its pledge to freeze all activities that could be used to make atomic weapons, are offering Iran economic and political incentives to terminate the most sensitive parts of its programme. Iran has so far refused.
President Bush has taken a harder line, calling for Iran to face UN sanctions, but hinted last week he may support the EU trio's approach, for now, at least. Western diplomats said he had not yet made a final decision.
The US was likely to stop blocking Iran's attempt to join the World Trade Organisation in a move to boost European negotiations to curtail Iran's nuclear programme, according to European diplomats.
Washington is also considering letting European allies sell Tehran civil aircraft parts as an incentive, they said.
President Bush's envoy, Jackie Sanders, told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors that Iran was "willing and apparently able to cynically manipulate the nuclear non-proliferation regime in the pursuit of nuclear weapons".
The UN nuclear watchdog's governing board had a "statutory obligation" to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, she said, according to a text of her speech.
"The Security Council has the international legal and political authority that will bring this issue to a successful and peaceful resolution." She told the governors' meeting that the council had the authority to "enforce a suspension of Iran's [ uranium] enrichment-related and [ plutonium] reprocessing activities".
Tehran has temporarily frozen the programme as requested by the EU, though the IAEA said Iran has continued some work related to enrichment centrifuges during the freeze.
European diplomats told reporters such tough rhetoric from Washington would strengthen their position later this month in a new round of talks with Iran, which has so far rejected the EU's demand that it abandon its uranium enrichment programme.
One diplomat said it was like a "good-cop bad-cop" approach.
US diplomatic documents show that if the US agrees to go along with its EU allies over Iran, it will do so only until June before seeking UN Security Council sanctions if Tehran has not acceded to the European demand that it terminate its uranium enrichment programme.
The head of Iran's delegation, Sirus Naseri, said abandoning uranium enrichment was not a topic that would be up for discussion with the Europeans when they meet later this month.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, speaking to state television on Tuesday, said Iran was not afraid of going before the Security Council.
"We are not interested in being referred to the Security Council ... but we are not scared of the council either because we have been acting within the framework of international rules," Mr Rohani said.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, investigating Iran's nuclear programme for over two years, told reporters that Iran had to be more open if he was to conclude whether its programme was peaceful.
Ms Sanders referred to Tuesday's speech by IAEA deputy director general Pierre Goldschmidt, who said Iran had rejected an IAEA request to inspect its Parchin military complex and was forging ahead with plans to build a heavy-water reactor that can produce bomb-grade plutonium.