Iran risking 'escalation' of N- standoff: US

    Washington: White House press secretary Scott McClellan has said that Iran's removal of United Nations seals from nuclear equipment at its Natanz facility risks a "serious escalation" of the country's standoff with the international community over its nuclear program. An official release of the US embassy stated on Wednesday that McClellan on Tuesday repeated his warning that the issue might need referral to the UN Security Council if Iran did not comply with previous agreements and "does not negotiate in good faith" with the international community. "A growing majority within the international community shares this view," he added. McClellan went on to say that if Iran proceeded with uranium enrichment and reprocessing, it would violate the November 2004 Paris agreement negotiated with France, Germany and the United Kingdom further.

  The press secretary warned that if Iran were to master the technology of uranium enrichment, which he said was the intended purpose of its enrichment plant, "it would be able to apply that technology to a covert enrichment program which could be used to manufacture (nuclear) weapons". The "serious concern" throughout the international community about Irans behaviour was "well founded," partly due to Irans "history of concealing and hiding (its) nuclear activities from the international community, as well as its continued non- compliance of its nuclear safeguard obligations, he said. "It's also why the international community has sought objective guarantees from Iran that the regime is not developing nuclear weapons under a guise of a civilian program," McClellan added. He further said that United States was in discussions with European countries and others about how best to move forward and resume negotiations with Iran. The United States is continuing to work to resolve the crisis "in a peaceful and diplomatic manner," he said, repeating President George W Bush's statement that "Iran is not Iraq".

   However, he said that Bush had also "made it clear we never take options off the table". "Everybody in the international community is sending a clear message to Iran that it needs to abide by the Paris agreement, come back to negotiations, act in good faith, and provide objective guarantees that it can be trusted and that it is not developing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian program," said McClellan.

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