IAEA: Iran defies Security Council

Iran's president remained defiant over the release of the report.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran has defied a U.N. Security Council call to freeze uranium enrichment and is stonewalling efforts to determine if it is developing nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday in a report that strengthened Western calls for sanctions.
The United States and its allies reacted quickly, with Britain pledging to introduce a resolution next week for the council to issue a mandatory order for Iran to abandon uranium enrichment. Russia and China, however, have sought to avoid a showdown and opposed escalating pressures on Tehran.
President Bush said "the world is united and concerned" about what he called Iran's "desire to have not only a nuclear weapon but the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon."
But, reflecting the lack of consensus on punishing Iran, he added, "I think the diplomatic options are just beginning."
Defiant
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was defiant, saying that whatever resolution the Security Council adopts, it cannot make Iran give up its nuclear program. "The Iranian nation won't give a damn about such useless resolutions," he told a cheering crowd in northwestern Iran.
The eight-page report, drawn up by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei for the Security Council and obtained by The Associated Press, contained few new revelations.
But it is larded with phrases reflecting Iran's refusal to cooperate with the Vienna-based agency, stymieing IAEA efforts to determine whether Tehran has made any efforts to build atomic weapons during 25 years of nuclear activity -- most of it clandestine.
"Iran declined to discuss these matters," the report said of the IAEA's questions about Tehran's enrichment program. "Iran continues to decline the agency's request for a copy of the document," it says about plans showing how to mold highly enriched uranium into the shape needed for a nuclear bomb.
"After more than three years of agency efforts to seek clarity about all aspects of Iran's nuclear program, the existing gaps in knowledge continue to be a matter of concern," the report said. "Any progress in that regard requires full transparency and active cooperation by Iran."
The report's primary importance was to serve formal notice that Iran ignored an informal 30-day deadline set by the council for suspending by Friday all activities linked to uranium enrichment.
Iran, which insists its program has only the peaceful purpose of producing fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity, played down the report -- and the unanswered questions.
"From our point of view, these few questions are not important. The main questions have been settled," said Mohammed Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
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