UN meeting rebukes Iran's nuclear defiance

The 35-nation board of the U.N. nuclear agency overwhelmingly rebuked Iran on Thursday for refusing to heed demands that it take actions to diminish fears that it might be seeking atomic arms, a move hailed by the United States as demonstrating international pressure on Tehran to compromise.     

Only one country  Cuba  voted against a resolution brought before the International Atomic Energy Agency board and drawn up by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Ecuador, Tunisia and Egypt abstained, while the 31 other nations supported the resolution.     

Iran denies any interest in nuclear arms. But it has refused to comply with U.N. and IAEA demands to stop activities that could be used to make such weapons and to allow a probe of suspicions it worked on an arms program.     

Robert Wood, the chief U.S delegate to the IAEA, said he hoped he board's near-solid backing for the resolution would serve as a wake-up call for the Islamic Republic to heed international demands to replace its words with actions that prove it has no interest in nuclear weapons.             

Israeli government leaders have become increasingly strident in suggesting that only military action will stop Iran from getting nuclear arms. For the six powers sponsoring the resolution, the onus at the Vienna meeting was thus to prove that unified international diplomatic pressure could still be exerted on the Islamic Republic  even if it was largely symbolic.        

Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. But it refuses foreign offers of reactor fuel if it stops making its own through uranium enrichment. Enriching uranium is a process that worries the international community because it could be used to arm nuclear warheads too.     

The IAEA also suspects that Iran has worked secretly on nuclear arms  allegations Iran dismisses as based on fabricated U.S. and Israeli intelligence.     

The six powers behind the resolution included Russia and China  which often speak out against harsh punishment for Iran  as well as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, and Western diplomats described the backing of Moscow and Beijing for the resolution as an example of unity.

The European Union asserted that the Islamic Republic was stalling the IAEA in its attempts to probe Tehran's nuclear activities.

It also said Iran was failing to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it stop activities that could lead to the manufacture of nuclear arms. An EU statement called such conduct "unacceptable."

AP