URANIUM ENRICHMENT Standoff over nuclear program gets testier as Iran makes threats

Many countries worry that Iran wants to make nuclear weapons.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran threatened Friday to end surprise inspections and other cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog if it is referred to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program, and the president vowed his country won't be intimidated by sanctions.
Iran's tough line came as Europe and the United States were trying to build support for hauling Iran before the Security Council. They faced resistance from China, which warned the move could only escalate the confrontation.
In Washington, President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged U.N. intervention. The world needs to "send a common message to Iran that their behavior ... is unacceptable," Bush said.
An end to U.N. inspections would be a dramatic breakdown in the already faltering diplomatic attempts at reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions. The United States and many in Europe fear Iran aims to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran insists its program is peaceful, intended only to produce electricity. But it has insisted on its right to conduct uranium enrichment, a process that can produce reactor fuel or material for a nuclear bomb.
After Iran resumed research work on enrichment this week, Britain, France and Germany issued a tough statement Thursday declaring 2 1/2 years of tense negotiations with Tehran at a "dead end" and urging the Security Council to intervene.
Change in wording
But on Friday, the three countries carefully avoided talk of sanctions, with diplomats privately conceding there was little appetite for tough economic sanctions, such as restricting oil and gas sales -- given the impact that would have on the world economy.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the Security Council would consider sanctions if Tehran remained defiant. But echoing French and German officials, who said talk of sanctions was "premature," he called for patient, step-by-step diplomacy.
"Our approach is firm, but it has also got to be a sensible, patient approach which ensures that there is a continuation of the very substantial international consensus which we have built up," he said.
Soccer at risk
Meanwhile, another leading British politician called for Iran to be expelled from soccer's World Cup for resuming its nuclear program.
Conservative lawmaker Michael Ancram said Friday such a move "would give a very, very clear signal to Iran that the international community will not accept what they are doing."
In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said a referral to the U.N. would prompt Iran to end its cooperation with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency outlined in an agreement known as the Additional Protocols, reached in October 2003.
"In case Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council ... the government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary cooperation," the television quoted Mottaki as saying.