Iran removed UN seals at its uranium-enrichment plant and resumed nuclear fuel research on Tuesday, drawing sharp criticism from the West which fears Tehran is bent on acquiring the means to build atomic bombs.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the research would involve the small-scale enrichment of uranium, useable in power plants or weapons. Russia, Iran’s nuclear energy partner, and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also criticized its move.

Washington said that if Tehran started purifying uranium, this would be a “serious escalation” of its dispute with the West. US officials said a Security Council referral was not definite given doubts whether it would have the backing of Russia and China.

“Iran’s nuclear research centers have restarted their activities,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told state television. He denied Iran intended to produce nuclear fuel. “There is a difference between research and producing nuclear fuel...The production of nuclear fuel is still under suspension,” he told a news conference.

Tehran denies wanting nuclear technology for anything but a civilian energy program aimed at satisfying the Islamic Republic’s booming demand for electricity. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he was consulting EU colleagues on how hard to push for a Security Council referral by the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board, which diplomats said could hold an emergency meeting within weeks. Straw said he would meet British and French counterparts and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Berlin today. The three countries have been conducting talks with Iran on behalf of the EU and the United States.

<B>Military action </B>

Straw told parliament that if Tehran, whose president has called for Israel’s destruction, showed it intended to develop a nuclear facility, it risked destabilizing the Middle East.However, he stressed that the dispute with Iran must be resolved by diplomatic means. “Military action is not on our agenda, I don’t believe in practice it is on anyone else’s agenda,” he said.

Iran is the world’s fourth biggest exporter of crude oil and many states would be loath to endanger access to such energy. Russia, which is helping build Iran’s first nuclear power station at the southern port of Bushehr, said Iran’s stated plan “in the near future to restart work connected with the enrichment of uranium provokes concern”. Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as noting Iran acted “despite a moratorium agreed between Iran and European countries and despite the fact that this agreement was registered with the IAEA”.

“The IAEA’s board sees such a moratorium as essential for the resolution of remaining questions on Iran’s nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. ElBaradei told the IAEA board that Iran had told the agency it would carry out limited uranium enrichment at its underground Natanz plant, where it broke UN seals as IAEA inspectors watched. “Iran plans to install a small-scale gas ultracentrifuge cascade in its pilot fuel enrichment plant at Natanz,” a Western diplomat said, reading from ElBaradei’s report.

It said the research would entail feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into a cascade, or cluster, of centrifuges – machines that can purify the gas to a low level for nuclear power-plant fuel or to a higher level for weapons. The report said some of the seals designated for removal covered maraging steel, a high-strength alloy harder than normal steel that can be used for the casing of a nuclear bomb.

Diplomatic compromise

It said ElBaradei “expressed his serious concern about Iran’s decision to unravel the suspension” since three years of IAEA probes had not yet resolved concerns about Iran’s nuclear work, which Tehran hid from inspectors for almost 20 years. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the EU trio would decide whether there was any point in holding further talks with Tehran on a diplomatic compromise.

The next talks have been set for January 18 in Vienna, where the IAEA is based. The United States said a diplomatic crackdown looked inevitable. “If the regime in Iran continues on the current course and fails to abide by its international obligations, there is no other choice but to refer the matter to the Security Council,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Several diplomats said the IAEA board had received a full report on Iran’s breaking of IAEA seals at three nuclear facilities that had been mothballed under a November 2004 deal with Britain, France and Germany.

<B>Parisa HAFEZI</B>