US, allies seek to close divide on Iran

The Bush administration has accused Iran of using its civilian nuclear power program to covertly produce plutonium and enriched uranium, which could be used in nuclear bombs. It had been pushing for the International Atomic Energy Agency to declare Tehran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to bring the issue before the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

"America believes the IAEA must be true to its purpose and hold Iran to its obligations," President Bush said in a speech in London yesterday.

Britain, Germany, and France are pushing a softer line and have circulated a draft resolution on Iran that the United States views as inadequate. The European nations argue that despite past concealments of nuclear activities, Iran has recently come clean and agreed to comprehensive inspections.

Punishing Iran when it is beginning to cooperate, they say, could prompt Tehran to cease its new openness, possibly withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty, and spark an international crisis.

Faced with an impasse as the IAEA's 35-member board of governors begins meetings in Vienna today, Germany, Britain, and France are working to insert language into the draft resolution "that would be more acceptable to the United States," Western diplomats close to the talks said last night.

Some diplomats said a possible compromise would formally forgo reporting Iran to the Security Council and pushing for sanctions, but would seek tougher language in the draft condemning Tehran's past concealment of its nuclear activities and saying that Iran had "breached" the Nonproliferation Treaty.

A US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity described the situation as "very fluid" and would not comment on the details of a potential compromise.

How the issue is resolved, diplomats close to the talks say, could set an important precedent for how to combat proliferation amid mounting fears that nuclear weapons could spread to terrorists and to states that support them.

The trans-Atlantic rift broke into the open in Brussels earlier this week when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and European foreign ministers failed to agree on a common approach to Iran's alleged nuclear program. Powell expressed concern that the draft resolution prepared by Britain, Germany, and France fell short of declaring Iran to be in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

"We had some reservations . . . about whether the resolution is strong enough to convey to the world the difficulties that we have had with Iran over the years," Powell said Tuesday.

The draft focused on Iran's efforts to cooperate with the international community in the past few weeks, including the voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment and agreement to allow tougher inspections by the IAEA. Critics say it minimizes nearly two decades of covert possession and potential production of plutonium and enriched uranium.

Some countries on the IAEA board, including Canada, Australia, and Japan, support the US approach. But the majority, including Russia and China, appear to back the Europeans, diplomats said. Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, told CNN yesterday that he saw "no grounds for imposing sanctions against Iran."

In a classified Nov. 10 IAEA report, the agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, detailed 18 years of Iranian nuclear violations, including the failure to report plutonium production and uranium enrichment. But he said there was no evidence that Tehran was trying to build a bomb. "In the past, Iran has concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities, with resultant breaches of its obligations," said the report, which was made available to the Globe. It added, however, "There is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities . . . were related to a nuclear weapons program."

Signatories to the Nonproliferation Treaty may enrich uranium, but must report such activity to the IAEA. The IAEA report also said that "Iran's policy of concealment continued until last month" and that cooperation had been "limited and restrictive." But in recent weeks, Tehran had "shown active cooperation and openness."

On Oct. 21, the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Britain won key concessions from Iran, including an agreement to voluntarily suspend uranium enrichment and to allow the more stringent inspections.

But Hassan Rohani, the head of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council, warned yesterday that Iran would not tolerate any resolution legally requiring it to cease enriching uranium.

"Any sentence in the resolution that turns our voluntary suspension into a legal commitment will be unacceptable for us," Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Material from Reuters and the Associated Press was included in this report.