Nations Agree To Iran U.N. Referral

(CBS/AP)  Iran struck back Tuesday at the Big Five powers' decision to refer Iran's nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council, saying the move would mean the end of diplomacy over its atomic program.

Still, in what appeared to be an attempt to show it was cooperating with the West, Iran handed over documents last week to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency on casting uranium into the shape of a warhead, diplomats in Vienna, Austria, said.

At a London meeting that lasted into the early hours of Tuesday, envoys of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States decided they would recommend Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency should report Iran to the Security Council. They also decided the Security Council should wait until the IAEA issues a report on Iran in March before tackling the issue.

"The breakthrough agreement by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council sends a united message to Iran that the world will not tolerate nuclear weapons development," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, interviewed on CBS News Up To The Minute, "but the agreement was achieved by the decision to take no action until the final International Atomic Energy Agency report in March, giving Iran a face-saving way to get back on track with its commitment to close down its facilities."

A document obtained by Iran on the nuclear black market serves no other purpose than to make an atomic bomb, the IAEA also said Tuesday.

The finding was made in a report prepared for presentation to the 35-nation IAEA board when it meets, starting Thursday, on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

The report was made available in full to The Associated Press.

First mention of the documents was made late last year in a longer IAEA report. At that time, the agency said only that the papers showed how to cast "enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms."

The agency refused to make a judgment on what possible uses such casts would have. But diplomats familiar with the probe into Iran's nuclear program said then that the papers apparently were instructions on how to mold highly enriched grade uranium into the core of warheads.

In the brief report obtained Tuesday, however, the agency said bluntly that the 15-page document showing how to cast fissile uranium into metal was "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components."

Asked about the finding, a senior diplomat close to the IAEA declined to elaborate but emphasized that the documents had no other use.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »