Iran Sticks To Hard Line On Nukes

Says It Will Block Inspections If U.N. Security Council Is Involved

(CBS/AP) 
The law also requires the Iranian government to resume all nuclear activities that it had stopped voluntarily, foremost among them enriching uranium.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also said a "strong message" had to be sent to Tehran but said she was not ready to talk about what action should be taken to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I think we have an Iranian regime that is determined to be on the wrong side of the international community and I think they're going to have to bear the consequences of that," Rice told CBS News Chief White House correspondent John Roberts.

"This must be about nuclear weapons," Rice said "Let's say they wanted civilian nuclear power. They had every chance to have it without the kind of proliferation risk that the world is unwilling to take."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he also had "strong suspicion" that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb but stressed that there was no categorical evidence to prove that.

"To quote the White House, 'Iran is not Iraq,' " Straw said in an interview Friday with the British Broadcasting Corp.

He added that while Iran could face Security Council sanctions for resuming its nuclear activities, military action is not being considered.

"This can only be resolved by peaceful means. Nobody is talking about invading Iran or taking military action," he said.

The calls to refer Iran to Security Council were made two days after Iran removed some U.N. seals in the presence of IAEA inspectors from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, and resumed research on nuclear fuel.

Iran said it was resuming "merely research" and that "production of nuclear fuel" — which would involve enrichment — "remains suspended." But the IAEA said Tehran also planned small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or material for nuclear weapons.

"I recommend to European countries that they should separate the issue of research from production of nuclear fuel and not make propaganda over research which is natural and normal but had unjustly been subject to suspension in the past," Mottaki was quoted as saying.

Mottaki said Iran was prepared for talks with Europeans over uranium enrichment.

"If they have any discussion in the stage of nuclear fuel production, we are prepared to continue our talks with the three European countries," he said.

Mottaki, however, insisted that Iran won't give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to possess the whole nuclear fuel cycle — from extracting uranium ore to enriching it.

"No one can take this right from the Iranian nation. Regaining this right doesn't require permission from any country," the television quoted him as saying.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday that Tehran was interested in resuming "serious and constructive negotiations" with the Europeans but this time wanted a deadline.

Meanwhile, a leading British politician said Friday that Iran should be expelled from the soccer World Cup for resuming its controversial nuclear program.

Conservative lawmaker Michael Ancram said exclusion from soccer's biggest tournament "would give a very, very clear signal to Iran that the international community will not accept what they are doing."