Still defiant, Iran advances nuclear work

WASHINGTON -- Despite the threat of new sanctions, Iran is advancing work at its largest nuclear facility and has informed international inspectors in writing that it will not comply with a United Nations order to suspend the program, according to US and European diplomats familiar with the inspectors' latest findings.

The UN Security Council on Dec. 23 set a 60-day deadline for the Tehran government to halt its nuclear work. Since then, though, Iran has installed nearly 400 centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment facility in the town of Natanz, according to several officials who agreed, on the condition of anonymity, to discuss details from the inspectors' report, which is due today.

The report to the Security Council will confirm, the officials said, that Iran is flouting the council's resolution and moving ahead with efforts to enrich uranium.

US, British, and French officials said they will respond to Iran's defiance by pressing for additional economic sanctions, including an enforced travel ban on senior Iranian officials, asset freezes, and an end to government-backed loans and credits. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to meet today in Berlin with German, Russian, and European colleagues to discuss the possibility of imposing those new sanctions.

Rice said talks with Iran were possible on the condition that it suspend its nuclear program first.

But diplomats in Washington and at the United Nations acknowledged yesterday that they expect weeks of struggle with Russia, China, and members of the European Union, all of which are ready to reopen talks with Iran even if it does not first halt the nuclear program.

"If the intention is to punish the Iranians," said one Chinese diplomat, the Security Council is in for a "long negotiating process."

A senior European diplomat said it is not a foregone conclusion that "we will go down the sanctions lane," adding: "There are quite a number of European Union countries who believe we should go easy because there seems to be an opening on the Iranian side."

The Bush administration has been trying for years to roll back Iran's nuclear advances, choosing sanctions and attempted isolation rather than engaging in direct talks with Tehran.

Senior diplomats from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China, as well as Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, have all reached out to Iran's senior negotiator, Ali Larijani, in the past two weeks as the deadline for Iranian compliance approached.

Iran has said repeatedly that it wants to return to negotiations with Europe and Russia and even hold talks with the United States, but that it would not halt its nuclear program as a precondition. Iran says that its nuclear program, which began in secret in 1987, is for the production of energy and not weapons and that the nation is within its rights, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to develop nuclear fuel.