France, Germany and Britain, which represent the EU, tabled in Vienna on Wednesday afternoon a draft resolution on the Iran nuclear issue to the IAEA Board of Governors, urging to report the issue to the UN Security Council.

 

The draft resolution asks Iran to take various confidence building steps on its peaceful nature of nuclear program, a Vienna-based diplomat told Xinhua.

 

The steps include: to "re-establish full and suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities," including research and development; to "reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water."

 

The draft resolution requests the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "report to" the UN Security Council these steps required of Iran, said the diplomat, who declined to notify his name.

 

However, the EU-3, which have conducted two years of talks with Iran and were furious over Iran's resumption of nuclear research since Jan. 10, still urged continuation of the "diplomatic solution" to the Iran nuclear issue.

 

The three nations also requested Iran to extend "full and prompt cooperation" with the IAEA, in particular to help the UN nuclear watchdog to clarify Iran's possible activities, which could have a military nuclear dimension.

 

The IAEA's decision-making body -- the 35-member Board of Governors will hold an extraordinary meeting on Thursday to discuss the draft resolution.

 

On Wednesday, various sides conducted a series of diplomatic consultations in Vienna, the diplomat said.

 

Iran is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which have a dozen of members in the IAEA Board of Governors. On Wednesday, NAM was holding meetings to explore possible countermeasures.

 

According to the IAEA rules, merely a simple majority is needed when adopting a resolution at the Board of Governors.

 

However, diplomats said the EU-3 want a unanimous adoption or at least absolute majority in a bid to push more pressure on Iran.

 

However, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out on Wednesday and vowed to resist the pressure of "bully countries" after the EU-s circulated the draft resolution, saying that Tehran would continue its nuclear program.

 

"Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized," Ahmadinejad told the crowd in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, the site of Iran's only nuclear power plant.

 

"Our nation can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe," he added.

 

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said at a news conference that the Islamic republic would halt intrusive UN inspections of its nuclear facilities and resume large-scale enrichment of uranium if it is taken before the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

 

Larijani also said Iran remains committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

 

However, he said Iran's main enrichment plant at Natanz "is ready for work."

 

"If Iran is reported to the Security Council, we will do it quickly," he added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2006)