UNITED NATIONS: Divisions among the members of the UN Security Council over its response to Iran's announcement on uranium enrichment has prompted the 15-member body to consider the issue only after IAEA report on Tehran's compliance to the demand that it stop all nuclear programmes.
Diplomats said that the members would like to give time to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed Elbaradei to persuade Iran and report back before taking any action.
The council had asked Iran to comply with the UNSC directives to re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities by April
28. There is no reason for it to consider the issue before the timeline expires, a senior diplomat said.
Elbaradei has already arrived in Tehran and will hold talks with Iran's chief negotiator on the nuclear issue, Ali Larijani and the vice president of the Iranian Atomic Energy
Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh.
The rationale behind major powers not rushing to an immediate action on Iran's announcement might be that Tehran would take years to make an actual nuclear weapon, diplomats added.
But they agreed that Iranian action was in defiance of the Council statement which had called on it to end uranium enrichment activities.
Iran was basking in national pride after regime scientists successfully enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel and officials pledged to move rapidly to industrial-scale work.
