Iran ignores UN nuclear deadline
Mahmoud Ahmdainejad remains defiant about Iran's nuclear energy rights
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Thursday, 31, Aug 2006 07:41
A defiant Iran has failed to halt the enrichment of uranium which is helping it develop a nuclear bomb, according to a UN report published today.
Today's deadline set by the UN was supposed to have seen Iran give up all pretensions to unilateral nuclear development, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad instead delivered a speech fiercely defending his country's right to work on nuclear material.
"Iranians will not surrender to forceful talk, aggression and deprivation of their rights," the Bloomberg news agency reported Mr Ahmedinejad as saying.
A report published today by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that, while it has evidence that Iran has resumed its uranium enrichment programme, there is no direct evidence that it is using this evidence to develop a nuclear bomb.
Despite this US leaders have condemned Iran and sought to play down suggestions that Iran does not desire nuclear weapons.
"There is simply no explanation for the range of Iranian behaviour. other than they're pursuing a weapons capability," concluded John Bolton, the US' ambassador to the UN.
"The report makes clear that not only has Iran not suspended uranium enrichment activities. it's accelerated them," he said.
Meanwhile US president George Bush, making a major foreign policy speech in Salt Lake City, warned that "there must be consequences for Iran's defiance".
Coming in the context of a militant speech which outlined the US' ideological credentials, observers have suggested the same attitude which brought down Saddam Hussein's regime three years ago could mean harsh measures are in store for the next recalcitrant country on the president's list.
With the US' backing it is possible that the UN security council will begin discussing the imposition of punitive sanctions on Iran in an attempt to dissuade the Middle Eastern country from continuing with its nuclear programme through extra-diplomatic means.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has warned that Iran would respond by shutting off oil supplies completely by closing the Hormuz Straits, through which flow one-fifth of the world's oil supplies.