Iran Risks International Confrontation By Restarting Nuclear Fuel Operations

Iran’s breach of its nuclear research moratorium will top the agenda when Britain, France and Germany meet tomorrow, with Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, signaling a referral to the UN Security Council and possible sanctions.

After confirmation yesterday that Iran had restarted nuclear fuel operations at its underground complex in Natanz last week, Mr Straw said referral to the security council - which can impose sanctions - would be "top of the agenda" when he meets his French and German counterparts to discuss the latest crisis.

"I don’t want to make a decision unilaterally but I think it is clear the direction which we are taking," he said yesterday.

Mr Straw told MPs in Westminster: "The issue of whether we formally propose a referral to the Security Council will be the key subject for discussion."

Referring to Iran’s decision, he said: "It would destabilize the whole of the region and, in doing so, threaten international peace and security as a whole."

Mr Straw’s remarks echoed a warning by Jacques Chirac, France’s president, that Iran had made a "serious error". Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, said Tehran had "crossed lines which it knew would not remain without consequences".

Iran has managed to shift the long-running nuclear dispute with the west from diplomacy to confrontation with Germany conceding it could end more than two years of negotiations between Tehran and the EU troika.

British officials said an emergency meeting of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna could be summoned to decide on the international response. Iran’s stance challenges Brussels and Washington to force the dispute on to the agenda of the UN Security Council.

As threatened last week, Iran removed IAEA seals from uranium enrichment equipment at Natanz complex. Iran plans to construct 50,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium, which they say they need to produce fuel for a civil nuclear program. The same equipment can produce fissile material for nuclear warheads. While the Iranians remain a long way from either goal, the decision to reopen operations marks an escalation of the dispute.

"Iran’s nuclear research centers have restarted their activities," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization, announced. This breached an IAEA board resolution ordering a freeze on all uranium enrichment-related activities while Iran’s nuclear programs are investigated.

Iran maintains actual enrichment remains suspended. But the IAEA’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the board member states in Vienna that Tehran had told the agency it intended to introduce uranium hexafluoride gas into "centrifuge cascades for research".

Enriched uranium - for power stations or warheads, depending on the degree of enrichment - is produced by spinning the gas through the centrifuge rigs at supersonic speeds. The Natanz operation would provide valuable know-how and leave Tehran able to move more quickly into full enrichment. Europe’s strategy, backed by the US, is to ensure that Iran does not enrichuranium since that is the most common route to a nuclear bomb.

Unusually, the Iranian move resulted in a protests from Russia, which has been trying to work out a compromise with Iran. China, too, voiced muted criticism. China and Russia are the west’s biggest problems in getting the 35-strong IAEA board to take the dispute to the Security Council. They can also veto action on the council.

Britain is convinced the Iranian claim that the seals have been lifted purely for research purposes is bogus and that enrichment is now under way. "The regime continues to choose confrontation over cooperation," said Gregory Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA.

Germany, signaling a tougher approach since Angela Merkel replaced Gerhard Schröder as chancellor, suggested there was little point in seeking to revive negotiations. The harder line is in part due to the outrage stirred by denials of the Holocaust by the Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.