Iran warned on Tuesday that the referral of a long-running dispute over its nuclear programme to the United Nations Security Council will bring ”an end to diplomacy”, saying the move had no legal justification.
”Informing the Security Council or referring the Iranian case to it will bring an end to diplomacy and that is not at all positive,” state television quoted top national security official Ali Larijani as saying.
Foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members agreed in London on Monday to bring Iran before the council over its nuclear programme.
”I do not want to use the term scandalous,” Larijani said of the decision, adding that Iran ”will use all peaceful means to achieve its nuclear technology rights within the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty”.
”I still think we can get a good result, but if the Europeans chose a non-peaceful path … it will not be in their interests,” he added. ”We advise them to continue constructive negotiations with Iran.”
The referral is likely to come during an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors, which begins on Thursday.
But, in a compromise with Russia, the powers agreed to put off UN action until at least March.
The head of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team Javad Vaidi said Iran would stick by its January 10 move to resume uranium enrichment research — a sensitive process the West fears will give Iran nuclear weapons know-how.
”The research activities are an inalienable right for Iran” and the decision to resume the work earlier this month — which triggered the latest crisis between Tehran and the West — is ”irreversible,” he said.
He also inisted that the research work had no links with industrial-scale production of uranium enrichment which ”is still suspended”.
Iran has already threatened that if referred to New York — or even if the Security Council is merely ”informed” — it would retaliate by limiting IAEA inspections and resuming large-scale enrichment.
Iran argues that it only wants to generate electricity and has a right to possess nuclear technology as a signatory of the NPT.
Atomic Energy Agency chief Gholamreza Agazadeh told the ISNA news agency there was no legal justification to bring Tehran before the Security Council.
”The Europeans cannot find a legal basis within the rules of the International Atomic Agency to send the Iranian dossier to the UN Security Council, and that is their greatest difficulty,” he said.
In a joint statement after a four-hour dinner, foreign ministers from six countries — the permanent five of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — said they had agreed that the UN nuclear watchdog ”should report to the Security Council its decision on the steps required of Iran” when the IAEA board meets in Vienna on Thursday.
A move by Iran to cut off cooperation or a push ahead with nuclear fuel work would lead to a further escalation of the crisis.
But Iranian compliance with IAEA demands to cease such work and greater cooperation with IAEA inspectors could defuse the situation.
Iran has been appealing for more time to negotiate with Moscow on a compromise proposal — and it remains unclear if an expected Security Council referral will speed up these talks or prompt Iran to pull out of them.
Russia’s idea is for Iran’s uranium to be enriched on Russian soil, something that could allay Western fears that the clerical regime will acquire sensitive dual-use technology but at the same time guarantee Iran’s access to nuclear energy.