West seeks to pressure Iran at IAEA

AUSTRIA: Western countries will seek to turn the screw further on Iran at a meeting of UN atomic agency board of governors from Monday following the watchdog’s latest damning report on Tehran’s nuclear programme. With EU foreign ministers talking Saturday in Cyprus about more sanctions, Britain, France and Germany were leading the charge for a clear signal from the International Atomic Energy Agency gathering, diplomats said.

“Iran has done anything but comply with its obligations,” one senior Western official based in Vienna said.

“The board needs to speak very clearly and in a unified way.” However, Russia and China, seen as softer on Iran, were resisting a tough-talking resolution that might include a referral of Iran to the UN Security Council. An IAEA report on August 30 added to suspicions -- not only in the West and Israel but elsewhere -- that Iran is not telling the truth when it says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

The agency said Iran had doubled since May its uranium enrichment centrifuges at its underground Fordo facility, and that a suspected clean-up at the Parchin military base would “significantly hamper” inspectors.

AFP