By Daisy Ayliffe - 18th September 2005
The EU is set to take Iran to the UN Security Council after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran will continue to enrich uranium.
Ahmadinejad told the UN on Sunday that Iran would not give up its “inalienable right" to manufacture nuclear fuel.
The speech appears to have plunged the long-running dispute into complete deadlock, with the EU and US calling on Iran to cease uranium enrichment.
EU officials insisted they will press ahead with an attempt to have Iran reported to the UN Security Council.
The British foreign secretary, and EU presidency holder, Jack Straw, said Ahmadinejad’s speech was "unhelpful and disappointing".
Senior officials from France, Britain, Germany and the US meet on Monday to discuss their next move.
British EU presidency officials are also drafting a resolution to be put to Monday’s meeting of the 35-strong International Atomic Energy Agency board in Vienna.
The EU and US are said to have decided to push for an unprecedented vote on the resolution.
That might produce the 18 votes needed to send Iran to the UN Security Council but the move would be very divisive.
Ahmadinejad’s speech attacked Western governments for trying to create an "apartsheid" system in peaceful nuclear technology.
“We are concerned that once certain powerful states completely control nuclear energy resources and technology, they will deny access to other states and thus deepen the divide between powerful countries and the rest of the international community,” he said.
Ahmadinejad promised that Iran would go well beyond the standard practices of having the UN inspectors monitor the programme by opening up the uranium enrichment operations to foreign companies and countries.
He pledged that “continued interaction and technical and legal cooperation with the IAEA will be the centrepiece of our nuclear policy.”
The Europeans and Americans have rejected this, insisting that perfecting uranium enrichment would give the Iranians the wherewithal for producing weapons-grade uranium.
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