By John Daniszewski and Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writers
LONDON -- Global criticism rained down on Iran Tuesday after it broke seals set by the International Atomic Energy Agency on a nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, ending a two-year freeze on activities that Western leaders fear could lead to the enrichment of uranium to build nuclear weapons.
In response, European ministers scheduled an urgent meeting for Thursday to determine whether to recommend that Iran face proceedings before the U.N. Security Council that could result in economic sanctions.
Several governments said the action by Iran's new hard-line government led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unnecessary and provocative. While the Islamic Republic has insisted that it intends to use nuclear energy to operate only power generating plants, nations including the United States are convinced that Iran plans the research in order to develop nuclear weapons.
While breaking the seals is not, in and of itself, an illegal act, the International Atomic Energy Agency, using its strongest language to date, voiced "serious concern" at Iran's action. The IAEA is the body that oversees adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"There is no good reason why Iran should have taken this step," said Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain, one of the three European countries negotiating with Iran to limit its nuclear program on behalf of the European Union.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, called the move a "serious escalation" and said that If Iran "continues down this road and the negotiations have run their course, then there is only one option to pursue, and that is referral to the Security Council. And that is the option we are talking about with our European friends and others."
"I think the international community is prepared to move to the next step," McClellan warned.
The Iranian action caps a steadily rising war of nerves in recent months between Tehran, the Iranian capital, and an international community alarmed at the prospect that a militantly anti-Western and anti-Israeli regime could be on course to obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran has acknowledged that it is working on missile technology that could deliver warheads as far as Israel and Western Europe.
Iran last week announced it intended to resume nuclear research frozen two years ago, although it continued to insist that its program is peaceful and legal under international conventions, and that it has a right to pursue nuclear power generating plants and the fuel that runs it.
"What we resume is merely in the field of research, not more than that," the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Saeedi, told a news conference.
But outside Iran, there was little inclination to give the Iranians the benefit of the doubt.
Since Ahmadinejad's election in June, Iran has defied the international community by beginning preliminary efforts to process yellowcake uranium into uranium gas. Until now, Iran had not taken the next step of enriching the material, which could be used in either an energy or arms program.
On Tuesday, according to the IAEA, Iranian officials said they plan to feed uranium hexafluoride gas made from uranium yellowcake into a centrifuge cascade at Natanz to be spun into enriched uranium, in a small-scale pilot enrichment program.
While experts say that with the cascade of 164 machines it would take 10 years to manufacture enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, Western countries worry that once the Iranians master the process they could switch over to larger scale production.
Straw said he would meet with his French and German counterparts to map out the next step, with referral Iran to the Security Council being "top of the agenda."
"I think it is clear the direction in which we are heading," he added. Britain, France and Germany comprise the EU-3, the trio of EU countries negotiating with Iran, with the full backing of the United States, which has no diplomatic relations with Tehran.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is required under the treaty to submit its nuclear program to oversight by the IAEA. On Tuesday, the IAEA issued its statement expressing "serious concern" about Tehran's decision to restart the Natanz enrichment facility, as well as other recent failures to fulfill IAEA requests.
Diplomats close to the IAEA said the agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei had told Iranian officials that restarting enrichment research, coupled with the country's failure to make any progress in answering questions about its previous efforts to start a nuclear energy program, would result in a highly critical report to the IAEA board of governors. That, said diplomats, could spur Security Council action.
In the past, Iran has appeared eager to avoid a referral, but its most recent actions seem almost calculated to provoke such a response. The agency is due to give its next report to the Board of Governors in March, but that could be moved up.
The IAEA's 35-member board of governors makes decisions about any disciplinary measures for violations of nuclear energy commitments. But its members pay attention to ElBaradei and his team of top experts.
Western board members including France, Britain and Germany and the United States are pushing to hold an emergency IAEA governors meeting that could result in a decision to refer Iran to the Security Council immediately. Diplomats in Vienna, Austria, said no decision had been made on whether to hold an agency board meeting right away.
Ending the suspension and resuming research toward enriching uranium, even under IAEA supervision, has raised the confrontation to a new level, analysts said.
"Crossing this line does put us in a new ball game," said Mark Fitzpatrick a senior fellow in nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. It is "is additional evidence that their intentions are not exactly pure."
In the past the threat of a Security Council referral and possible sanctions was enough to dissuade the Iranians, who have a large, young, restive population to tend to and a need to develop their economy and trade.
Some measures that have been discussed in the past include economic sanctions and refusal of visas for Iranians to travel.
Any military intervention to stop the Iranian nuclear program would face practical difficulties, said Barry Buzan, of the London School of Economics international relations department.
"It's . . . pretty clear that even the U.S. couldn't launch effective pre-emptive strikes," he said. "The Iranians have their nuclear plants spread all over the place, well hidden . . . and they can make a lot of trouble with Iraq. "
Until now, it was difficult to forge a unanimous consensus on the Security Council for tough action against Iran. But that might be changing in light of Iran's recent actions and the growing sense that ElBaradei, who has high international credibility as last year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, would agree to tougher action.
Daniszewski reported from London and Rubin from Baghdad. Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington, D.C., and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.
