Iran Defiant On Nuke Censure

Iran may resume uranium enrichment "any moment," Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said on state television Monday.

"We suspended (enrichment) voluntarily and we may continue it voluntarily," Yunesi said. "And we may resume (enrichment) any moment."

The International Atomic Energy Agency has demanded that Iran halt all uranium enrichment activity, including the production and testing of centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

The chief of the U.N. agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, urged Iran on Monday to heed the demands, adding there were "serious concerns" about its nuclear activities. The IAEA is to report on Iran's compliance in November.

Yunesi said Iran rejected the motion passed unanimously by the IAEA board of directors on Saturday.

"The resolution is illegal," he said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran ... will ignore the provisions of the resolution because it is beyond the responsibilities of the IAEA."

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, said Sunday that the IAEA's demand for a halt to enrichment was "illegal," but he stopped short of outright rejection of the resolution and held out the possibility of negotiations.

"We are committed to the suspension of actual enrichment, but we have no decision to expand the suspension," Rowhani said. Iran suspended enrichment last year, but has always insisted the move was temporary.

"No resolution can impose an obligation on Iran to suspend activities. If there is a way, it will be the way of dialogue," Rowhani said.

"This is an important message for the Europeans and others," he said, adding that it was even possible that Iran discuss the issue with the United States.

"We had talks with America under the auspices of the United Nations over Afghanistan and Iraq in the past," Rowhani said. "I don't want to say dialogue with America is ruled out over our nuclear dossier."

The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of a peaceful nuclear program. Iran says its program is only for generating electricity.

The resolution passed by the agency was its toughest yet on Tehran but didn't go as far as the United States had sought — stopping short of saying Iran will automatically be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions if it fails to meet the demands by November.

In its resolution Saturday, the IAEA board of directors unanimously said it "considers it necessary" that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment and related programs. It expressed alarm at Iranian plans to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride — the gas that turns into enriched uranium when spun in centrifuges.

It called on the IAEA chief to provide a review of the investigation into Iran's nuclear activities by November when the board "will decide if further steps are appropriate" to ensure that Iran complies. The phrase suggested that Iran could have to answer to the Security Council if it defies the demands.

If Iran fails to comply with the IAEA resolution, the United States wants the IAEA board to refer Iran to the Security Council when it meets again on Nov. 25.

Also Monday, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said that more than 40 countries have the know-how to produce nuclear weapons and suggested some may not be forthright about their intentions.

In a keynote address to the IAEA's general conference, ElBaradei suggested it was time to tighten world policing of nuclear activities, which until recent years had relied mostly on countries volunteering information.

Beyond the declared nuclear-arms countries, "some estimates indicate that 40 countries or more now have the know-how to produce nuclear weapons," ElBaradei told the conference. "We are relying primarily on the continued good intentions of these countries, intentions, which ... could ... be subject to rapid change."

His comments appeared prompted by a series of revelations of proliferation or suspected illicit nuclear activities over the past two years.

Libya last year revealed a clandestine nuclear arms program and announced it would scrap it; North Korea is threatening to activate a weapons program, and South Korea recently revealed secret experiments with plutonium and enriched uranium, both possible components of weapons programs.

ElBaradei linked the need for strengthened controls to concerns about the international nuclear black market, which supplied both Iran and Libya and whose existence was revealed last year.

The "relative ease with which a multinational illicit network could be set up and operate demonstrates clearly the inadequacy" of the present controls on nuclear exports, he said.

The declared nuclear-armed countries are Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States. Israel is also widely believed to have the bomb.