Iran Breaks Atomic Seals Amid West’s Ire

Global criticism rained down on Iran on 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 nations said Tuesday’s action by Iran’s new hard-line government led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unnecessary and provocative. The Islamic Republic has insisted that it intends to use nuclear energy solely to operate power-generating plants, but governments including the United States strongly suspect that Iran plans to use the research to build atomic arms.

Although breaking the seals is not in itself an illegal act, the International Atomic Energy Agency, using its strongest language to date, voiced “serious concern” about Iran’s action. The IAEA is the body that oversees adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“There is no good reason why Iran should have taken this step,” said British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, whose government is one of the three negotiating with Iran to limit its nuclear program on behalf of the European Union.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan called the move a “serious escalation” and said 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.” The Iranian action caps a steadily intensifying war of nerves in recent months between Tehran 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 arsenal. Iran has acknowledged that it is working on missile technology that could deliver warheads as far as Israel and Western Europe.

Last week, Iran announced it intended to resume nuclear research it had halted two years ago, although it continued to insist its program is peaceful and legal under international conventions, and that it has the right to develop nuclear power plants and the fuel to run them.

“What we resume is merely in the field of research, not more than that,” the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammed Saeedi, told reporters.

But outside Iran, there was little inclination to give the Iranians the benefit of the doubt.

Since Ahmadinejad’s June election, Iran has defied the international community by taking preliminary steps to process “yellowcake” uranium into uranium gas, which can be further concentrated. Until now, Iran had not progressed to enriching the material, which could be used to produce energy or arms.

According to the IAEA, Iranian officials said Tuesday that they planned to begin a small-scale pilot program feeding uranium hexafluoride gas made from yellowcake into a centrifuge cascade at Natanz to be spun into enriched uranium.

Although 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 will accelerate production.

The Iranians have “called the bluff of the international community, and now the question is, what will they do about it? This is quite a challenge from the Iranian regime,” said a senior U.S. official, who asked to remain unidentified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Straw said he would meet with his French and German counterparts to map out the next step, with referring the issue to the Security Council being at the “top of the agenda.”

“I think it is clear the direction in which we are heading,” he added. Britain, France and Germany make up the EU-3, the group that is 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 Nonproliferation Treaty and is required under that pact to submit its nuclear program to IAEA oversight. 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 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, diplomats said, could spur Security Council action.

The agency is due to make its next report to the board in March, but that date could be moved up.

“ElBaradei is seriously concerned,” said a diplomat close to the IAEA. “Basically, he’s not getting any of the information he’s asked them for or access to sites that he’s requested.”

Among the sites IAEA inspectors want to examine is Lavizan Shiyan, a military facility that may have been used for the nuclear program but was razed before inspectors could take environmental samples.

The IAEA’s 35-member board of governors rules on taking disciplinary measures. However, its members pay attention to ElBaradei and his team of experts.

Western board members including France, Britain and Germany and the United States are pushing to hold an emergency meeting of the IAEA governors that could result in a decision to refer Iran to the Security Council immediately. Diplomats in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said no decision had been made on whether to hold such a meeting right away.

Over the last three years, ElBaradei has consistently counseled the board to continue talking with Iran and let agency inspectors continue their work. Inspectors have been trying to learn more about Iran’s clandestine program to manufacture nuclear fuel.

Iran began importing equipment and technology toward that end in the 1980s, but the program was disclosed only in 2002 by an Iranian exile group. Since then, IAEA inspectors have been trying to ascertain the extent of Iran’s programs and its goals. In the meantime, the EU-3 had been pursuing a compromise to get Iran to permanently end the suspended program in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives. In the most recent attempt to strike a deal, Russia has offered to enrich uranium on its territory for Iran. The resulting fuel would be safeguarded for use solely for energy.

In the past, the threat of a Security Council referral and possible sanctions was enough to dissuade Iran, which has a large, young, restive population and a need to develop its economy and trade. Yet its most recent actions seem almost calculated to provoke such a response.

“Up to now the threat of Security Council referral has been effective, but if it’s not anymore, then it’s hard to see what the Security Council can do,” said Gary Samore, who worked on nuclear nonproliferation issues as a member of the National Security Council under President Clinton.

Some measures that have been discussed include economic sanctions and refusal of visas for Iranians to travel.

Straw, speaking to reporters, said he was “as confident as I can be” that the matter could still be solved through “peaceful means, but it will involve a good deal of diplomatic and other pressure on Iran.”

Any military intervention to stop the Iranian nuclear program would face practical difficulties, said Barry Buzan, a professor in the London School of Economics’ international relations department.

“It’s ... pretty clear that even the U.S. couldn’t launch effective preemptive 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. “

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty permits signatory countries to produce civilian nuclear power if they submit their programs to IAEA supervision. But Straw said that Iran has breached other resolutions by the IAEA governing board and its 2004 agreement to suspend research.

Until now, it has been difficult to forge a consensus on the Security Council for tough action against Iran. But that may be changing in light of Iran’s recent actions and the growing expectation that ElBaradei, whose international credibility has risen since he received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, would agree to tougher action.

Sounding exasperated after more than two years of negotiations with Iran, Straw said that Iran had no need to develop a capacity to enrich uranium.

“And of course,” Straw added, “the fact that President Ahmadinejad has said, and I quote, he wishes to see Israel ‘wiped off the face of the map’ does not increase international confidence in the statesmanship of the Iranian government.”

Daniszewski reported from London and Rubin from Baghdad. Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.