Iran Defends Nuclear Ambitions

With the world watching its every nuclear step, Iran on Tuesday declared it is "determined" to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment.

Addressing a U.N. conference on the nonproliferation treaty, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government is "eager" to provide guarantees its nuclear-fuel program will serve only peaceful purposes, as sought in current negotiations with European governments.

Washington contends Iran's enrichment program is aimed at building nuclear weapons, and U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed banning such technology to all but those countries that already have it.

"It is unacceptable that some intend to limit the access to nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation," Kharrazi said.

The Iranian minister also told delegates from more than 180 nations that the United States and other nuclear-weapons states should make legally binding assurances to non-nuclear states like Iran that they will not be subject to nuclear attack.

In Tehran, meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday the government would resume some nuclear activities — but not uranium enrichment — that have been suspended during talks with European governments to resolve the dispute.

"Iran's threats, made from Tehran, to pursue its nuclear programs, appear to be part of its tough negotiating position at the U.N. Non Proliferation conference," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk from the General Assembly Tuesday.

"The saber rattling is strikingly reminiscent of last June's meeting at the IAEA which resulted in a resolution with no trigger mechanism to send Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council," reported Falk. "The only difference is that the clock is ticking. Between the June 2004 meetings in Vienna and this Treaty conference, Iran keeps developing its program and it is making everyone nervous. The fear is that Iran could follow North Korea and remove itself from the inspections regime."

On Monday, opening day of a monthlong conference reviewing the workings of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, U.S. delegation chief Stephen G. Rademaker demanded that Iran shut down and dismantle its enrichment equipment.

"The treaty is facing the most serious challenge in its history," the assistant secretary of state told delegates from more than 180 nations.

Because of the Iran dispute, treaty members still had not agreed on a complete agenda as of Tuesday morning. Conference organizers reported the Iranians were resisting a reference in the document to "relevant developments" — diplomatic code, in this case, for Iran's nuclear program. Organizers hope to have agreement before the nuts-and-bolts work of committees begins next week.

"The Bush Administration's stern accusation on Monday that Iran conducted secret nuclear weapons programs for decades and continues to break international rules was intended to galvanize the international community," Falk added.

Under the 35-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), states without nuclear arms pledge not to pursue them, in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — to move toward nuclear disarmament. Three other nuclear states — Israel, India and Pakistan — remain outside the treaty.

The NPT is reviewed every five years at conferences whose consensus positions give valuable political support to nonproliferation initiatives. At the 2000 meeting, the nuclear powers committed to "13 practical steps" toward disarmament, but critics complain the Bush administration — by rejecting the nuclear test-ban treaty, for example — has come up short.

"We are greatly disappointed" by "unsatisfactory progress" toward disarmament by the big powers, said New Zealand's Marian Hobbs, speaking for a coalition of disarmament-minded states.

Rademaker said, however, the Bush administration is "proud to have played a leading role in reducing nuclear arsenals," via the 2002 Moscow Treaty, for example, under which the United States and Russia are to cut back deployed warheads by two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 each, by 2012.

That agreement has been criticized for not requiring destruction of excess warheads taken off deployment, or providing a transparent timetable and open verification of reductions.

Rademaker sought to focus attention instead on Iran, saying, "We dare not look the other way."

The Iran question hinges on the NPT's Article IV, which guarantees nonweapons states the right to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment equipment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.

That same technology, with further enrichment, can produce material for nuclear bombs. Tehran denies that is the purpose of its long-secret uranium-enrichment program, but in his keynote address Annan said states like Iran "must not insist" on possessing such sensitive technology.

Following Annan to the U.N. podium, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, renewed his call for a moratorium on new fuel-cycle facilities while international controls are negotiated.

ElBaradei has proposed putting nuclear fuel production under multilateral control by regional or international bodies. Rademaker reaffirmed Bush's proposal for an outright ban on nuclear fuel technology, except in the United States and a dozen other countries that have it.

The Tehran government is negotiating on and off with Germany, France and Britain about shutting down its enrichment operations in return for economic incentives.

Meantime, Tehran has proposed establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, a move that would require Israel to give up its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea pulled out of the NPT in 2003 and said in February it has already built nuclear weapons. But the review conference is not expected to focus heavily on this first NPT defector, in order not to complicate efforts, via now-suspended six-party talks, to draw Pyongyang back into the treaty fold.