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Iran to restart nuclear work, crisis looms Tue Aug 2, 2005 1:39 PM GMT By Parisa Hafezi TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday there was no going back on its decision to restart nuclear fuel work, a move a French minister said could spark a major international crisis. Two years of hard bargaining between the European Union and Iran over its nuclear programme looked close to breaking point with the EU coming round to the U.S. view that Tehran should be referred to the United Nations for possible sanctions. "I think this Iranian affair is very serious and that it could be the start of a major crisis," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters in Paris. The United States says Iran is trying to build a nuclear arsenal under the veil of a civilian atomic fuel programme. Iran says it only wants to build nuclear power stations. The so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany had been due to offer Iran nuclear, political and economic incentives to freeze its nuclear fuel activities indefinitely. But Iran insists the EU recognise its right to enrich uranium, something the union has so far refused to do. Iranian officials said they had grown impatient with what they called EU time-wasting and rejected the offer even before it had been made. "The political decision has been taken ... The resumption is irreversible," Supreme National Security Council spokesman Ali Aghamohammadi told Reuters. He said that as far as Iran was concerned, the resumption had already begun. But he did not say the Iranians had actually broken the seals placed at the plant by U.N. inspectors -- which would be a more decisive defiance of the international community. CHANCE TO SALVAGE TALKS? Iranian officials said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors began work at a uranium conversion plant near the central city of Isfahan on Monday in preparation for Iran to begin its nuclear activities there. "The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will finish the installation of surveillance equipment in the next 24 hours and we will restart the plant's activities in the next one or two days," Mohammad Saeedi said. But the IAEA in Austria said it would take at least a week. "The equipment needs to be sent from Vienna and it will take at a minimum of one week to get the surveillance equipment installed as well as other safeguard measures in place before seals could be removed," said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. EU diplomats say a decision on whether to keep diplomatic options alive could depend on whether fuel work actually begins, meaning the extra week needed to bring in inspectors could offer a hope of salvaging talks. The conversion plant near Isfahan turns uranium ore into gas. The gas is then enriched into fuel that could be used either in power stations or to make weapons. A new U.S. intelligence review estimates Iran is about 10 years away from having the ability to build a nuclear bomb, The Washington Post said on Tuesday. The EU3 said if Iran went ahead and began work at the Isfahan plant it would call for an urgent meeting of the IAEA board which can refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council. "Iran must stick to its commitments ... There will be a referral to the UN Security Council if Iran doesn't back off," French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told Europe 1 radio. In the United States, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said if Iran restarted activities at the Isfahan plant "we would have to look to the Security Council". Some EU officials speculated Iran might be creating a mini-crisis that President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could defuse by calling at his inauguration on Saturday for more time for negotiation. This could make him appear statesmanlike and soften his image as an anti-Western Islamic hardliner. But Aghamohammadi said the EU wanted to send its proposals later to make Ahmadinejad look bad. C Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hvkee0s/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122996944/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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