Iran says threats worsen nuclear impasse

TEHRAN -- Iran said yesterday that only diplomacy, not threats to refer the country to the UN Security Council, could defuse a standoff over its nuclear work and warned that any Western push for sanctions could force up world oil prices. The Security Council's five permanent members and Germany planned talks in London today in search of a common strategy to tackle Iran's resumption of atomic fuel research and development after a two-year moratorium.

Iran says it aims only to make power for an energy-needy economy, not build atom bombs. But it hid nuclear work from the UN nuclear watchdog agency for almost 20 years before exiled dissidents exposed it in 2002. Last week Tehran resumed research, prompting a diplomatic scramble.

Iran's ''red line" step in Western eyes was removing seals placed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in order to access equipment that purifies uranium, a key component in nuclear power or, if enriched to a higher level, in weaponry.

The agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, is still not sure that Iran's atomic program is peaceful after three years of intensive verification work, according to an interview with its chief released yesterday.

''If I say that I am not able to confirm the peaceful nature of that program after three years of intensive work, well, that's a conclusion that's going to reverberate . . . around the world," Mohamed ElBaradei told Newsweek magazine.

''Diplomacy is the only clear answer to the current situation," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference yesterday.

''There is no legal basis for referring Iran to the Security Council. But if that were to happen, Iran is not afraid."

Economy Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari said any sanctions to punish Iran could hurt the sponsors. ''Any possible sanctions on Iran . . . could possibly, by disturbing Iran's political and economic situation, raise oil prices beyond levels the West expects," he told state radio.

Iran is the world's fourth-largest exporter of crude oil.

Asefi called on the powers attending the London meeting to refrain from ''the language of intimidation and threats."

But Republican and Democratic US senators said yesterday the United States may ultimately have to undertake a military strike to deter Iran.

''That is the last option. Everything else has to be exhausted. But to say under no circumstances would we exercise a military option, that would be crazy," Republican Senator John McCain told CBS television, urging UN referral.

Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN that attacks on elements of Iran's nuclear program ''would dramatically delay its development."

ElBaradei said in his Newsweek interview that he would not extend the deadline for his next report on Iran beyond March 6, and he still needed access to documents, individuals, and locations to be sure ''there is nothing fishy about the program."

In an interview yesterday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused the European Union of overreacting to Tehran's steps last week and urged it to return to negotiations.

He said for Iran to agree to voluntarily suspend research once again would amount to accepting ''scientific apartheid," an allusion to the developing world's resentment at big powers' dominion over nuclear technology.