Iran Gets New U.S. Nuclear Warning
Iran gets new US nuclear warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4255976.stm
9/17/2005
Iran should abandon "forever" nuclear weapons ambitions, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told the United Nations General Assembly.
Making her maiden speech to the body, Ms Rice said Iran threatened the effectiveness of global efforts to contain nuclear non-proliferation.
And she said the UN Security Council should be ready to intervene.
Iran's president is expected to unveil new nuclear proposals when he addresses the assembly later on Saturday.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the session by warning of the spread of nuclear weapons and terrorism but he did not refer to any state by name.
"We face growing risks of proliferation and catastrophic terrorism, and the stakes are too high to continue down a dangerous path of diplomatic brinkmanship," he told the assembly's annual session in New York.
Iran, which insists it is only pursuing nuclear energy for energy purposes, has been locked in a wrangle with European Union states leading a diplomatic bid to resolve concerns.
Non-negotiable
Ms Rice advocated expanding the Security Council, an issue omitted from the reform package agreed at the UN World Summit, which ended on Friday.
The Security Council, she said, "must be able to deal with great challenges like terrorism and nuclear proliferation, especially when countries like Iran threaten the effectiveness of the global non-proliferation regime".
"When diplomacy has been exhausted, the Security Council must become involved," she added.
"Iran should return to the negotiations with the EU3 and abandon forever its plans for a nuclear weapons capability."
The EU3 - the UK, France and Germany - have been calling on Tehran to properly consider a package of incentives they put forward last month to try to persuade it to halt all sensitive nuclear activities.
Iran immediately rejected the call as insulting and its rhetoric has grown noticeably tougher, the BBC's Pam O'Toole reports.
It has said repeatedly that its recent resumption of uranium conversion work, which ended a nine-month freeze agreed as part of earlier negotiations with the EU, is not negotiable.
Now they are talking about the possibility of negotiating with Europe on uranium enrichment - the next, and more controversial, stage of the nuclear fuel cycle.
They are also suggesting broadening negotiations to bring other nations into joint ventures as a trust-building exercise.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline conservative elected in June, is expected to outline these proposals in his speech.
Further work
Other issues not covered in detail at the World Summit may be raised at the session of the General Assembly, which brings together ministers from the UN's 191 member-states, and is due to last 12 days.
Ms Rice called for a "lasting revolution of reform" and argued that countries with poor human rights should not be allowed to sit on UN committees judging other nations' records.
Much disappointment greeted the 35-page document adopted by the leaders, which had been diluted over long negotiations.
It omitted references to disarmament, reform of the UN Security Council and hard details of a plan to create a new human rights council.
However, the document passed at the historic summit in New York - held to mark 60 years of the UN as a body - did contain commitments to fight global poverty and reform the UN's structure.
