IAEA: Top Iranian official cancels meeting

VIENNA (AP) — A top Iranian official on Sunday abruptly canceled a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, dealing a blow to IAEA efforts to investigate alleged attempts by Tehran to make nuclear arms, an agency official said.

The IAEA official, confirming Iranian media reports that Monday's planned meeting was off, told The Associated Press that no reason had been given.

But a senior diplomat had told the AP that IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei likely planned to use the meeting with Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's nuclear program, to renew a request for more information on allegations Tehran had tried to make atomic arms.

Both the official and the diplomat demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to comment by name on the Iranian nuclear issue.

The diplomat, who follows IAEA attempts to clear up suspicions about Iran's nuclear activities, said the meeting also was likely to have focused on Iran's latest show of defiance of U.N. Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his nation was installing thousands of new uranium-enriching centrifuges and testing a much faster version of the device.

Ahmadinejad said scientists were putting 6,000 new centrifuges into place, about twice the current number, and testing a new type that works five times faster.

That would represent a major expansion of uranium enrichment — a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead.

Still, others suggested the claims may be exaggerated.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned the claim could not be immediately substantiated, and diplomats close to the IAEA said Iran has exaggerated its progress and experienced problems operating the 3,000 centrifuges already in place. One diplomat said Ahmadinejad's claims of a more advanced centrifuge appeared to allude to a type known as the IR-2, which the agency and Iran said months ago that Iran had begun testing.

The IR-2 is believed to be two-to-three times faster than the centrifuges currently in use, and his claim that the new machine was five times as quick added to the diplomats' skepticism.

In the enrichment process, uranium gas is pumped into a series of centrifuges called "cascades." The gas is spun at supersonic speeds to remove impurities. Enriching at a low level produces nuclear fuel, but at a higher level it can produce the material for a warhead. Iran says it is only interested in the process to generate nuclear power and plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that ultimately will involve 54,000 centrifuges.

The canceled meeting was also consider the first test of whether Iran will truly continue to stonewall the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, in its attempt to investigate the alleged military programs after saying earlier this year that such allegations were fabricated.

Iran has denied ever trying to make such weapons. But U.S. intelligence agencies say Tehran experimented with such programs until 2003, and other countries believe it continued past that date.

Suspected weapons-related work outlined in a February presentation to the IAEA's 35-nation board and IAEA reports preceding it include:

• Uranium conversion linked to high explosives testing and designs of a missile re-entry vehicle, all apparently interconnected through involvement of officials and institutions.

• Procurement of so-called "dual use" equipment and experiments that could be used in both civilian and military nuclear programs.

• Iran's possession of a 15-page document outlining how to form uranium metal into the shape of a warhead.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for its refusal to suspend enrichment and meet other council demands designed to ease fears its civilian nuclear program is a cover for attempts to make atomic arms.

Pentagon Admits Mistaken Shipment of Missile Fuses

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; 2:35 PM

The U.S. Air Force mistakenly shipped fuses that are used in nuclear weapons to Taiwan in 2006, believing the crates contained helicopter batteries, officials at the Pentagon announced this morning.

The error -- undetected by the United States until last week, despite repeated inquiries by Taiwan -- raises questions about how carefully the Pentagon safeguards its weapons systems. It also exposes the United States to criticism from China, a staunch opponent of a militarized Taiwan.

Pentagon officials said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has launched a full investigation. The devices -- which, when attached to a missile, help launch the detonating process -- have been returned to the United States, and President Bush has been briefed.

"There are multiple players; there are multiple parties involved," said Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense policy. "We'll do a thorough investigation, and those who are found responsible will be held accountable."

Among other things, officials will try to determine why no one noticed that the four boxes of components were missing, even though Pentagon policy requires inventory reconciliation every three months. The probe will also focus on whether any other material has been wrongly shipped or cannot be located. An initial evaluation suggests the devices were not tampered with while they were in Taiwan, officials said.

Henry, who called the error "disconcerting," said the government of Taiwan acted "very responsibly," quickly notifying the United States that the four boxes it received in fall 2006 did not appear to contain what had been ordered. However, both he and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne added, more than a year passed before the United States realized what had been shipped and moved to get the fuses back.

"It wasn't until this week that we became aware that they had something akin to a nose-cone assembly," Ryan said. "There were early communications, but we thought we were hearing one thing, and in reality they were saying something different."

Ryan said U.S. officials have notified authorities in Beijing, which considers Taiwan to be part of China and opposes its independence. Neither he nor Wynne answered a reporter who asked how China responded.

"Our policy on Taiwan arm sales has not changed. This specific incident was an error in process only and was not indicative of a policy change," Henry said. "We made an error in execution, and we notified them as soon as we were aware of it."

Wynne described the devices as "the electrical firing mechanism that allows" an intercontinental ballistic missile "to detonate -- just like the fuse on a stick of dynamite." The fuses were manufactured for use on a Minuteman strategic nuclear missile but contain no nuclear materials.

The devices would not work on any other missile system, officials said.

The nose cones, designed for a missile system that dates to the 1960s, were declared excess in March 2005 and shipped to a warehouse on an Air Force base in Wyoming, officials said. It is unclear whether they were placed in a classified storage area or how they were eventually mistaken for crates of batteries.

In response to a question from a reporter, Wynne said the Pentagon is still analyzing whether the shipment violated U.S. law or any treaties regulating arms trade and nuclear weapons policies.

"If there was a violation, we are coming forth with it as soon as we became aware of it," Wynne said. "And if there was something that was amiss, it clearly was not intentional. The United States stands by its treaty obligations."

France Adds Nuclear Sub and Vows to Cut Warheads

By STEVEN ERLANGER

PARIS — Dedicating France’s fourth nuclear-armed submarine, President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defended his country’s arsenal as vital to deter a range of new threats, including the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran with intercontinental missiles.

“The security of Europe is at stake,” he said, conflating the Continent’s interests with those of France.

“Countries in Asia and the Middle East are rapidly developing ballistic capacities,” he said. “I am thinking in particular of Iran,” which is “increasing the range of its missiles while serious suspicions weigh on its nuclear program.”

Mr. Sarkozy, stung by defeats in local elections in some large French cities, stuck to traditional presidential themes of national security and defense. His sudden divorce and remarriage, and his tendency to flit from one scheme to another, have made him seem slightly unserious, contributing to his party’s losses.

His mood on Friday was somber, as he inaugurated a new generation of nuclear submarine of the “Triomphant” class, this one named Le Terrible, which could be best translated as The Fearsome. It will be equipped with a new, nuclear-tipped missile, the M-51, whose range is secret but is understood, according to Le Monde, to be some 4,970 miles, able to reach Asia.

Clearly trying to balance nuclear modernization with gestures toward a European population more interested in eliminating nuclear weapons than improving them, Mr. Sarkozy said France would continue to reduce the number of warheads on airplanes, bringing its total nuclear force to fewer than 300 warheads, half the number during the cold war.

The actual number of warheads France possesses is secret. This year, the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks nuclear arsenals, said France had 348 warheads — 288 on submarines, 50 on air-launched cruise missiles and 10 bombs.

Mr. Sarkozy also called for all nuclear powers to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as France had done, and he proposed talks on a treaty banning nuclear-armed short- and medium-range ground-to-ground missiles, a category that includes Scud-type missiles, and an idea likely to go nowhere in a world of Hezbollah, Hamas and the like. He also called for an immediate moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and a treaty banning its production, similar to an American proposal of 2006.

Mr. Sarkozy has been criticized, especially by Germany, for leaping ahead without consultation with European allies on major initiatives, like the “Mediterranean Union,” a looser grouping than the European Union and modified after Berlin’s protests. On Friday, he offered a “dialogue” on the role of French nuclear weapons in Europe’s collective defense.

“Regarding Europe, it is a fact that France’s nuclear forces by their very existence are a key element in its security,” he said. “Let’s together draw the logical conclusions: I propose to begin, with those of our European partners who wish to, an open dialogue on the role of deterrence and its contribution to our common security.”

Britain also has nuclear weapons, the main reason that Britain and France remain permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Neither country has been willing to cede its seat to the European Union. The United States provides most of Europe’s nuclear deterrence through NATO and its doctrine of collective defense.

At the same time, Mr. Sarkozy described the French “force de frappe” as a weapon of self-defense. He was vaguer about France’s national interests than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who made a similar speech in January 2006, in which he appeared to broaden the list.

Then, Mr. Chirac delivered an unexpected and controversial warning to “rogue” states sponsoring terrorism by threatening to use nuclear weapons against any state that supported attacks on his country or considered using unconventional weapons.

“The leaders of states who use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using, in one way or another, weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part,” Mr. Chirac said. “This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.”

Mr. Sarkozy, an aide told Le Monde, wanted to “return to the ‘fundamentals’ ” of deterrence.

Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush Insists

Experts Say President Is Wrong and Is Escalating Tensions

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 21, 2008; A14

President Bush said Thursday that Iran has declared that it wants to be a nuclear power with a weapon to "destroy people," including others in the Middle East, contradicting the judgments of a recent U.S. intelligence estimate.

The president spoke in an interview intended to reach out to the Iranian public on the Persian new year and to express "moral support" for struggling freedom movements, particularly among youth and women. It was designed to stress U.S. support for Iran's quest for nuclear energy and the prospects that Washington and Tehran can "reconcile their differences" if Iran cooperates with the international community to ensure that the effort is not converted into a weapons program.

But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.

"They've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world," Bush told U.S.-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. "That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran," said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

Others said it is unclear whether the president believes what he said or was deliberately distorting Iran's position.

"The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions. But it's troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the State Department until last year and now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush was referring to previous Iranian statements about wiping Israel off the map. "The president shorthanded his answer with regard to Iran's previously secret nuclear weapons program and their current enrichment and ballistic missile testing," Johndroe said.

In two interviews beamed into Iran, Bush expressed deep respect for Iranian history and culture. In a second interview with the Voice of America's Persian News Network, Bush said: "Please don't be discouraged by the slogans that say America doesn't like you, because we do, and we respect you."

But analysts warned that Bush's statement on Iran's nuclear intentions could escalate tensions when U.S. strategy for the first time in three decades is to persuade Iran to join international talks in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment, a process used for peaceful nuclear energy that can be converted for use in a weapons program. "The bellicose rhetoric from one side only produces the same from the other," Maloney said.

Signaling further pressure on Tehran, the administration also issued a warning on Thursday to U.S. financial institutions about the dangers of doing business with Iranian banks because of inadequate checks on money laundering and the growing risks to the international financial system posed by Iran's financial sector. "The government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices," the Treasury Department said.

The advisory lists 59 major banks or their branches in cities such as Athens, Hong Kong, London and Moscow. It includes Iran's Central Bank and covers many banks not facing sanctions from the United Nations or the United States.

The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that Iran's Central Bank and commercial banks started asking that their names be removed from global transactions to make it more difficult for intermediary financial institutions to determine their true identity or origin.

The United States recently imposed new restrictions on dealings with Bahrain-based Future Bank, which is controlled by Iran's Bank Melli.

"Over the past eight days, the U.S. government has undertaken a number of steps to put Tehran on notice that the international community will not allow the Iranian government to misuse the international financial system or global transportation network to further its aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons capability, improve its missile systems, or support international terrorism," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and William Branigin contributed to this report.

Hard-Liners Take Early Lead In Iranian Elections

Hard-line conservatives allied with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad have taken an early lead in Iran's parliamentary elections according to unofficial results.

Iranian state television is reporting that hard-line conservative supporters of Ahmadinejad have taken 53 out of 144 contests tallied so far. Moderate conservatives have won 38 mandates and reformists 18. Another 35 winners are independents.

There are 290 seats in the Iranian parliament, called the Majlis, and most results have not yet been tabulated.

Hasan Khanlou, a spokesman at Iran's Interior Ministry, nevertheless says turnout was more than 65 percent of Iran's 44 million eligible voters -- up significantly from the 51 percent who voted in the 2004 election.

The election, held on March 14, is seen as a crucial test for Ahmadinejad in advance of next year's presidential elections where he is expected to face challenges from moderate conservatives and -- to a lesser degree -- from reformers.

Iran's conservatives are divided between hard-line supporters of Ahmadinejad and a more moderate faction alligned with former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and other senior officials had called for a big turnout to defy the countries they say are Iran's enemies. Reformists had also urged their supporters to vote to deny conservatives clear dominance in the next parliament.

Outside The Empowered Circle

Still, many Iranians have complained about a lack of choice after the Guardians Council -- an unelected body of clerics and jurists -- disqualified some 1,700 mostly moderate candidates on the grounds that they were insufficiently loyal to Islam or Iran's 1979 revolution.

"In this eighth parliamentary election [since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution], we have unfortunately seen the omission of most of the reformists, nationalists, and candidates who stand outside the current empowered circle," former reformist legislator Jalal Jalalizadeh told Radio Farda on March 14. "As a result, in most of the polling areas there are no candidates other than the ones who are close to the ruling bloc. This has led to the disappointment of people and thus in many electoral areas they have not participated."

One unidentified man, voting in Tehran, told Reuters that "there wasn't a candidate on the lists that actually appealed to me...I couldn't find the right candidate."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has criticized the elections, saying the results were "cooked" because the Iranian people were not able to vote for a full range of candidates.

Challenges Ahead

Analysts say, however, that despite the bias toward conservative candidates, Ahmadinejad will likely have a more difficult time with the new parliament than he had with the outgoing legislature.

"Reformists -- many of whom have been banned from running -- will, in the most optimistic view, succeed in getting one third of the seats in parliament," Mashaollah Shamsolvaezin, a Tehran-based journalist, told Radio Farda on March 14. "This powerful minority, along with the majority of the traditional and technocratic conservatives who oppose Ahmadinejad's policies, can form a remarkable majority, in order to put an end to the Ahmadinejad's current policies in terms of lawmaking. On the other hand, they can provide a tighter control over Ahmadinejad's domestic and foreign policy, especially in the field of economy."

Likewise, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close ally of reformist former President Mohammad Khatami said he expected Ahmadinejad to face "more challenges" with the next parliament.

Reformists and some conservatives have accused Ahmadinejad of fueling inflation, which now stands at 19 percent, with loans and subsidies. Reformists have also criticized him for his vitriolic anti-Western rhetoric, which has led to Tehran's increased international isolation.

The president is facing increased opposition from moderate conservatives led by Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps chief Mohsen Rezaie, and former nuclear negotiator Larijani.

There are also two coalitions of moderate reformers: the Reformist Coalition inspired by former reformist President Khatami and the National Confidence Party led by former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

(RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report)

U.N. Alleges Nuclear Work By Iran's Civilian Scientists

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 11, 2008; A01

Iranian nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh lectures weekly on physics at Tehran's Imam Hossein University. Yet for more than a decade, according to documents attracting interest among Western governments, he also ran secret programs aimed at acquiring sensitive nuclear technology for his government.

Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly invited Fakhrizadeh to tea and a chat about Iran's nuclear work. But for two years, the government in Tehran has barred any contact with the scientist, who U.S. officials say recently moved to a new lab in a heavily guarded compound also off-limits to U.N. inspectors.

The exact nature of his research -- past and present -- remains a mystery, as does the work of other key Iranian scientists whose names appear in documents detailing what U.N. officials say is a years-long, clandestine effort to expand the country's nuclear capability. The documents, which were provided to the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear agency, in recent months by two countries other than the United States, partly match information in a stolen Iranian laptop turned over by Washington.

IAEA officials say these documents identify Fakhrizadeh and other civilian scientists as central figures in a secret nuclear research program that operated as recently as 2003. So far, however, Iran is refusing to shed light on their work or allow U.N. officials to question them. After being presented with copies of some of the new documents, Tehran denied that some of the scientists exist.

"When the allegations are raised, Iran simply dismisses them," said a Western diplomatic official familiar with the agency's dealings with Iran. "It insists that the documents are mostly fakes."

The standoff over interview requests has cast a shadow over a five-year U.N. effort to excavate the truth about Iran's nuclear past. In that search, Western anxieties have been compounded by Tehran's reluctance to clarify the history of its interest in technologies that could be used for either nuclear power or weapons.

A similar set of uncertainties helped provoke the U.S. war with Iraq, which the Bush administration justified partly by positing that Baghdad was deliberately concealing nuclear weapons research from U.N. inspectors. The outcome of that invasion suggests caution, however, since U.S. troops were unable to find any convincing evidence of banned weapons work, and deposed Iraqi officials said they had been secretive to conceal from regional opponents that they had ended such work, not continued it.

In Iran's case, U.N. officials say, the new evidence does not prove that the scientists carried out plans to build a nuclear device, but shows that Fakhrizadeh and other scientists struggled to master associated technologies. Several of the scientists, including Fakhrizadeh, appear to have moved freely between military and civilian research venues.

The documents purport to show advanced research into a variety of nuclear-related technologies, including uranium ore processing, warhead modification and the precision-firing of high explosives of the type used to detonate a nuclear device. Other documents point to attempts by civilian scientists to purchase sensitive equipment of the kind Iran would eventually use in its uranium enrichment plants.

Some of the new documents came from inside Iran, according to European officials familiar with them. None specifically include the word "nuclear," and IAEA officials say there is no evidence that any of the plans advanced beyond the paper stage.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a major opposition group that claims to have informants inside Iran's government, contends in materials provided to The Washington Post that nuclear weapons design work persists and has migrated to universities and schools. But U.S. and U.N. officials say they cannot corroborate the group's claim.

Instead, U.S. intelligence officials have said that Iran worked on weapons design in the past but halted the research in 2003. But government officials and weapons experts acknowledge concerns over Iran's refusal to answer questions or explain what key scientists are doing now.

"It's not the first time we've seen individuals who seem to wear white hats but are working on very different projects behind the scenes," said Leonard Spector, a former Energy Department nonproliferation official who is now deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He noted that other countries, particularly Pakistan, have used civilian scientists as cover for secret nuclear research.

Although the IAEA has not publicly described the contents of the new documents, the U.N. Security Council adopted new sanctions against Iran last week, in part because of what European leaders described as Tehran's "abysmal" performance in answering the IAEA's questions about past nuclear research.

"As long as Iran's choice remains one of non-cooperation, we for our part will remain determined to demonstrate the costs and consequences of that choice," British Ambassador Simon Smith said in a statement last week on behalf of Britain, Germany and France, which have taken the lead in trying to persuade Iran to stop making enriched uranium, a critical ingredient used in both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

Calls placed to Iran's U.N. mission in New York were not returned.

Fakhrizadeh is prominent in several of the documents, according to two officials who have seen them. A personnel chart listed him as the senior authority overseeing all the research projects. Another paper, purportedly signed by Fakhrizadeh, establishes spending guidelines for the research programs, while a third sets rules for communication among scientists, suggesting, for example, that researchers avoid putting their names on correspondence that might eventually become public, according to a Europe-based diplomat who viewed the documents.

Fakhrizadeh, 47, who became a Revolutionary Guard Corps member after the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, is a former leader of the Physics Research Center, which U.N. officials say was heavily involved in drawing up plans and acquiring parts for Iran's first uranium enrichment plant. He was among eight Iranians placed under international travel and financial restrictions under the terms of a U.N. resolution adopted last year because of his alleged ties to "nuclear or ballistic missile" research, U.N. records show.

According to the Iranian opposition group, in addition to holding the university post, Fakhrizadeh recently was appointed the director of a new Center for Readiness and New Defense Technology, which is in Tehran and is under direct military command. Several of his deputies have been reassigned to nuclear departments at ostensibly civilian schools such as Shahid Beheshti University, also in Tehran.

"Fakhrizadeh is a key person, but he is not the only player," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the opposition group's foreign affairs committee.

Colombia Says Rebels Sought to Make Dirty Bomb

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — Colombia added a new accusation against the FARC rebel group on Tuesday, saying Colombian forces had found evidence that the rebels had been seeking the ingredients to make a radioactive dirty bomb.

The accusation, made by Colombia’s vice president, Francisco Santos, at a United Nations disarmament meeting in Geneva, represents a sharp verbal escalation surrounding the three-country dispute involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The quarrel began over the weekend when Colombian forces hunted down and killed a Colombian guerrilla leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Material found on a laptop computer recovered in that raid provided the basis for Mr. Santos’s accusations about a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.

“This shows that these terrorist groups, supported by the economic power provided by drug trafficking, constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America," Mr. Santos said in a statement that was posted in Spanish on the disarmament conference’s web site. The rebels were “negotiating to get radioactive material, the primary base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism,” he said.

It was unclear from Mr. Santos’s statement whom the rebels were negotiating with.

Mr. Santos based his claim on information provided Monday in Bogotá by Colombia’s national police chief about a deal involving the FARC’s negotiations for 110 pounds of uranium.

The tension further escalated when President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia said Tuesday that he would file a complaint with the International Criminal Court against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, accusing him of providing financial assistance to the FARC, which stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Colombia’s largest rebel group.

In another reaction to Colombia’s cross-border raid, Elías Jaua, Venezuela’s agriculture minister, said that Venezuela was planning to close its border with Colombia to halt commercial trade.

On Monday, Ecuador broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, and Venezuela expelled Colombia’s ambassador and other diplomats.

The three countries have been swapping accusations of treachery and deceit in the dispute over the killing of the guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes, by Colombian forces.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, in ordering the expulsion of the Colombian Embassy’s diplomatic personnel, said it was acting “in defense of the sovereignty of the fatherland and the dignity of the Venezuelan people.”

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who expelled Colombia’s ambassador over the weekend, went a step further on Monday by breaking off diplomatic relations. The move was not unexpected after his claim that Mr. Uribe of Colombia was lying about the nature of the raid.

Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to the Colombian border on Sunday in response to Colombia’s military raid on the rebel encampment in the jungle about a mile inside Ecuador. Colombian forces killed 21 guerrillas in the FARC.

In addition to killing Mr. Reyes, Colombia said it had recovered his laptop computer. Its contents have since been at the center of several allegations.

At a news conference in Bogotá, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, Colombia’s police chief, accused Venezuela of channeling $300 million to the FARC, based on what he said was information obtained from Mr. Reyes’s computer.

General Naranjo also said computer documents showed financial support from the FARC for Mr. Chávez of Venezuela, going back to the time Mr. Chávez spent in prison after an unsuccessful coup attempt in Caracas in 1992.

“This implies more than cozying up, but an armed alliance between the FARC and the Venezuelan government,” General Naranjo said.

Venezuela’s government, which sent tank units to its border with Colombia in a response to the Colombian raid, denied aiding the rebels. “We are used to the Colombian government’s lies,” Vice President Ramón Carrizales said.

General Naranjo displayed photographs and documents he said had been taken from Mr. Reyes’s computer, but the context of the information was unclear.

Ecuador also rejected claims by Colombia of ties with the FARC, and sent 3,200 troops to Sucumbios, an Amazonian province near its border with Colombia where the attack on the FARC’s camp took place.

Mr. Correa, the Ecuadorean president, said the Colombian rebels had been killed in their sleep “in their pajamas,” and not in the heat of pursuit as Colombia’s security forces had said. Ecuadorean emergency officials recovered several wounded members of the FARC, transporting them to hospitals in Quito.

Faced with one of Latin America’s worst diplomatic crises in recent years, the Organization of American States said it would convene a meeting in Washington on Tuesday to try to prevent an escalation of the dispute between Colombia, a staunch Bush administration ally, and the leftist governments of Ecuador and Venezuela.

Even as Colombia’s government offered details on the FARC’s relations with Venezuela and Ecuador, Colombian officials said Monday that they would not send more troops to the borders with the two countries in response to the mobilizations ordered by Mr. Chávez and Mr. Correa.

Because of the FARC’s resilient history at the heart of Colombia’s war, it has had contact with insurgencies and governments throughout Latin America and beyond, including the United States, which classifies the FARC and other armed groups in Colombia as terrorists.

For instance, in 1998 a Clinton administration official, Philip T. Chicola, then the State Department’s director of Andean affairs, had a clandestine meeting with Mr. Reyes in Costa Rica in an effort to establish a way of communicating with the FARC during times of crisis.

The meeting was described in a diplomatic cable written by Mr. Chicola in January 1999 and declassified in 2004. Also present at the meeting was Mr. Reyes’s wife, Olga Marín, who is believed to be the daughter of the FARC’s top commander, Manuel Marulanda, and also reported to be present, and possibly wounded, in the raid on the jungle camp on Saturday.

The Bush administration on Monday reiterated its support for Colombia’s struggle against the FARC and cocaine trafficking, but called for a negotiated solution to the crisis.

“This, for us, is an issue between the governments of Colombia and Ecuador,” said Tom H. Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, in a briefing to reporters on Monday in Washington. “We believe it’s appropriate for them to work that out through diplomatic discussion.”

Still, what began over the weekend as an operation by Colombian forces in Ecuadorean territory has evolved into a wider regional matter.

“Our view of this issue right now is that there is no doubt that there is a territorial violation and we condemn it,” said Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, speaking to reporters in Brasília. “It raises insecurity problems in all countries of the region, mostly in the smaller ones.”

And amid the Colombian accusations, Mr. Chávez remains at the center of the increasing tension, with his political opponents here criticizing his decision to mobilize troops and fighter jets in a show of Venezuelan force.

“If anyone has to protest, it is Ecuador’s government, as the military incident took place in Ecuadorean territory, not ours,” Teodoro Petkoff, the publisher of the newspaper Tal Cual, said in an editorial. “Venezuela has nothing to complain about.”

Jenny Carolina González contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia, and Uta Harnischfeger from Zurich.

European powers drop bid to push resolution against Iran

The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

VIENNA: Facing objections by Russia, China and developing nations, European powers abandoned on Tuesday an attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Western diplomats said.

Opponents felt a resolution against Iran would be superfluous a day after the UN Security Council toughened sanctions on Iran and could provoke a Tehran to reduce, not increase, cooperation with UN inspectors, they said.

"The board doesn't need to compete with the Security Council," said an Asian diplomat on the 35-nation governing board of the IAEA. Almost half the governors are from developing nations.

Britain, France and Germany scrapped the resolution after concluding that their goals had been achieved by the Security Council and there was no point risking a schism among UN nuclear policy makers that Iran might exploit, Western diplomats added.

"Iran thought it could manipulate the IAEA to avoid a Security Council resolution while moving forward to develop its uranium enrichment capability," Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters.

"As the resolution adopted yesterday in New York shows, Iran clearly failed. In fact what the resolution does from a Vienna perspective is to underscore that Iran's file remains open and to fully support the IAEA in its continuing investigation of outstanding issues, particularly with respect to weaponization."

In Tehran, the government rejected the resolution imposing new sanctions as "worthless" and vowed to move ahead with its uranium enrichment program.

"This resolution is contrary to the spirit and articles of the International Atomic Energy Agency," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Muhammad Ali Hosseini, according to the official press agency IRNA.

"It has been issued based on political motivations and a biased approach. It is worthless and unacceptable."

He said the sanctions would "have no impact on the resolve and determination of the Iranian nation and government to fulfill its legitimate rights in continuing its peaceful nuclear activities within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Iran has pursued a uranium-enrichment program it says is meant only to generate electricity. But its history of nuclear secrecy and continued curbs on IAEA inspections stoke fears it could turn enrichment technology to yielding nuclear arms.

In imposing more far-reaching sanctions by a 14-to-0 vote, the Security Council cited Iran's defiance of demands to suspend enrichment, failure to fully explain past nuclear activity and continued restrictions on IAEA inspections.

The third round of sanctions approved Monday orders a freeze on assets of more Iranian officials and companies with links to the country's nuclear and missile program, and for the first time bans trade with Iran in some goods with both civilian and military uses.

Last week the IAEA's chief of nonproliferation safeguards presented to board diplomats detailed intelligence suggesting Iran had tried to "weaponize" nuclear materials.

He revealed diagrams, slides and video, much of them from a laptop removed from Iran by a defector, indicating administrative links between projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify a missile cone for a nuclear payload.

The IAEA director, Mohamed ElBaradei, opening the weeklong governors session Monday, pressed Iran to cooperate with the agency inquiry into the allegations, signaling the IAEA would not take Tehran's flat denials for a final answer.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA repeated on Tuesday that Tehran would have nothing more to do with the inquiry and would never suspend its nuclear program, but would keep its declared enrichment sites under IAEA monitoring despite the new sanctions.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh noted that ElBaradei had certified Iran had resolved six outstanding questions about its past nuclear activity and said arms studies did not count because they were "fabrications" of Iran's chief foe, the United States.

"The alleged studies were thoroughly reviewed in two rounds of talks, and we gave our final assessment," he told reporters invited to a slide presentation held to counter the IAEA one last week.

"The issue is over."

He offered no substance in the presentation, entitled "A Short Glance at Iran's Peaceful Nuclear Activities," to refute the intelligence material.

Security Council Adds Sanctions Against Iran

By WARREN HOGE and ELAINE SCIOLINO

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council on Monday adopted its third resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enriching uranium, an activity that Western nations say is designed to build nuclear weapons.

The previous two measures gained unanimous support of the 15-member panel, but in Monday’s balloting, Indonesia abstained, saying it “remained to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture.” Fourteen countries voted in favor.

The resolution authorizes inspections of cargo to and from Iran that is suspected of carrying prohibited equipment, tightens the monitoring of Iranian financial institutions and extends travel bans and asset freezes against persons and companies involved in the nuclear program.

It adds 13 names to the existing list of 5 individuals and 12 companies subject to travel and asset restrictions. The new names include people with direct responsibility for building fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium ore and a brigadier general engaged in “efforts to get round the sanctions” in the two earlier resolutions.

The new measure also bans all trade and supply of so-called dual-use items, materials and technologies that can be adapted for military as well as civilian ends.

Earlier Monday in Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitor, said that newly disclosed intelligence reports that Iran had secretly researched how to make nuclear weapons were of “serious concern” and would be pursued by his office.

“Iran continues to maintain that these alleged weaponization studies related to conventional weapons only are fabricated,” Dr. ElBaradei said in a speech to the agency’s 35-country policy-making body. “However a full-fledged examination of this issue has yet to take place.”

The studies were described last Monday, in a briefing for the agency’s 35-country governing body by Olli Heinonen, the agency’s senior inspector.

They included sketches and a video that appeared to have come from Iran’s own military laboratories, and Mr. Heinonen said they showed work “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.”

In a thinly veiled criticism of Iran, Dr. ElBaradei said, “I urge Iran to be as active and cooperative as possible in working with the agency to clarify this matter of serious concern.”

Iran says that the agency’s findings support its claim that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, and it has rejected all suggestions that it was studying how to make nuclear weapons.

Iran’s ambassador to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, called the intelligence data “forged and fabricated” and denounced the new Council resolution Monday as “irresponsible” and “an arrow aiming at the heart of” the atomic energy agency.

Iran argues that its program is devoted solely to producing fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity. The United States and its European allies on the council contend the real purpose is to make Iran an atomic power, and they say they are determined to prevent that from happening.

The resolution voted Monday was originally scheduled for a decision on Friday, but its two sponsors, Britain and France, delayed consideration in the hope of getting as close to unanimity as possible. In addition to Indonesia, three other Council countries - Libya, South Africa and Vietnam - had expressed reservations.

To address them, the final version included last minute language changes making it clear that cargo inspections must conform to local and international laws and stressing the central role of the International Atomic Energy Agency and evidence in the latest report from Dr. ElBaradei Feb. 22 that Iran was cooperating with the agency.

The resolution extends the reach of punishments in the two earlier measures, adopted in December, 2006 and March, 2007, but it does not make them any tougher.

The text was drawn up after months of talks among the Council’s five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, which is not a Council member.

It repeats a pledge from the six countries to establish full relations and economic cooperation with Iran should it agree to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.

In Vienna, Britain, France and Germany said they were preparing a draft resolution critical of Iran that could be adopted by the agency’s policy-making body later this week. The United States, Canada, Australia and Japan already have indicated privately they would support such a move.

It would be the first time the board had passed such a resolution on Iran since it sent the Iran to the Security Council for review two years ago.

The United States, which in the past has criticized Dr. ElBaradei for not being tough enough on Iran, expressed support for this approach. “Despite some progress in addressing past issues, troubling questions remain about Iranian activities that strongly suggest a clandestine weapons-related program,” Gregory L. Schulte, the American envoy to the agency, told reporters in Vienna.

He added, “Between the indications of weapons work, which would constitute a violation of Iran’s treaty obligations and Iran’s blatant violations of Security Council resolutions, there is strong reason for Iran’s file to remain open both in New York and in Vienna.”

Warren Hoge reported from the United Nations, and Elaine Sciolino from Paris.

North Korea Criticizes Military Exercise

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday that annual American-South Korean military exercises that began over the weekend could further delay progress on ending the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

Although such criticism from the Communist country is routine, it dampened hopes for warmer ties between the United States and North Korea — hopes that had been raised after the New York Philharmonic’s concert last week in the North Korean capital., Pyongyang.

News also emerged from Pyongyang over the weekend that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, who did not attend the Philharmonic’s concert, paid a rare visit to the Chinese Embassy on Saturday for “cordial talks” — a move that suggested that Mr. Kim was striking a delicate diplomatic balance between the big powers.

The military exercise, which involves tens of thousands of United States and South Korean troops and the Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was “an exercise for invasion to trigger a nuclear war,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

“This nuclear threat won’t work with us, but will only put the brakes on the denuclearization process on the Korean peninsula,” the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying.

He said North Korea would “further bolster all its deterrent forces,” a term the country often uses to refer to its nuclear arsenal.

The United States and South Korea have been staging annual joint war games for years, and each year North Korea criticizes them.

This year’s weeklong drill, which started Sunday, comes at a delicate time for North Korea.

Frustration in Washington is rising over North Korea’s delays in giving a full accounting of its nuclear programs. In Seoul, Lee Myung-bak, a conservative politician who has championed a tougher stance toward the North, was sworn in as president on Feb. 25.

On Sunday, a North Korean military official was quoted by the official news media as saying that the country was ready to strike back against the military exercises, using “all our means we have prepared at a high cost.”

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the top American negotiator on North Korea, flew to Beijing on Saturday and met with Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei of China to discuss how to restart the stalled nuclear disarmament talks with Pyongyang. But he was stood up by North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan.

Still, Mr. Hill held out hope for resuming the so-called six-party talks, which involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. “Time is short so I hope we can get on with that this month,” Mr. Hill, who is on a 16-day trip to Asia, said Monday at a news conference in Hanoi, Reuters reported.

The disarmament talks are bogged down over Pyongyang’s failure to meet the agreed-upon deadline of Dec. 31 to make a complete declaration of its nuclear programs.

Analysts say the main sticking point is North Korea’s reluctance to state whether it tried to enrich uranium or to transfer nuclear technology to Syria.

U.N. Says Iran May Not Have Come Clean on Nuclear Past

By Joby Warrick and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 2, 2008; A16

Iranian documents obtained by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog strongly suggest that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons design as recently as four years ago, U.N. officials disclosed last week in a private briefing.

The documents suggest that Iran's research on nuclear weapons continued for several months after U.S. intelligence officials say the effort was suspended, the International Atomic Energy Agency's top nuclear security expert told diplomats in Vienna, according to notes taken by a participant.

Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's deputy director general, was elaborating on a public report released Feb. 22 that questioned whether Iran had come fully clean about its nuclear past. In the report, the watchdog agency said Tehran had not credibly explained documents that appeared to point to research programs devoted to uranium processing, high explosives and missiles design -- all of which can be used in making nuclear weapons. Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and has dismissed the documents as fakes.

In the technical briefing Monday with diplomats from IAEA member states, Heinonen offered new details about the Iranian documents, according to notes obtained by The Washington Post. He revealed that the IAEA had collected corroborating evidence, from the intelligence agencies of several countries, that pointed to sophisticated research into some key technologies needed to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.

Some of the documents, for example, described studies on modifying Iran's Shahab missile to allow it to accommodate a large warhead, which would detonate 600 meters above its target. The feature would make sense only if the warhead was nuclear, Heinonen suggested.

Iran now faces a tougher challenge in convincing the world that it has never sought nuclear arms, according to a nuclear weapons expert who reviewed the briefing notes.

"The information is much harder to refute," said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "It seems to point to work on nuclear weapons -- even if the program wasn't coherent and even if a decision was never made to actually build a weapon."

Iran's U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazee, told reporters Thursday that the new allegations being studied by the IAEA are "baseless" and that Iran has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote tomorrow on a third resolution imposing travel and financial sanctions on Iranian individuals and institutions. The measures are intended to pressure Tehran into suspending its enrichment of uranium and other nuclear programs that have a potential military use.

A Security Council diplomat said Iran's top envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, reacted angrily to last week's briefing. He said that the documents could have been manufactured by any student who was "paid $100" and that the IAEA had exceeded its mandate as a technical agency by engaging in intelligence activities.

Iran says U.S. work plan intelligence fake

Reuters
Sunday, February 24, 2008; 9:44 AM

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it had cleared up all past outstanding issues over its nuclear program with the United Nations nuclear watchdog and accused the United States of providing intelligence that was fake.

"The work plan is finished," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters, referring to a pact between Tehran and the IAEA to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear activities one by one.

In its latest report published on Friday, the IAEA said Iran had responded to questions and clarified issues raised in the context of the work plan struck in August, with the exception of alleged studies into the possible weaponization of nuclear materials.

The agency said it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports of work linked to making atomic bombs, adding Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers.

Soltanieh said the intelligence, coming mainly from the U.S. and a laptop spirited out of Iran in 2005, was fake. "This is 100 percent fabricated and forged," said Soltanieh.

Some of the documents had only been shown to Tehran in mid-February -- after it had already given its final assessment on the outstanding issues to the agency and in any case too late to be addressed in time for the February report, said Soltanieh.

"At the eve of every board of governors they brought up new allegations against Iran and they created a new political environment," Soltanieh said. "We cannot permit an endless process to go on," he said.

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors is scheduled to meet March 3-7.

Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs, but Tehran insists it is seeking to master nuclear technology so it can make fuel for a planned network of nuclear power plants and save its huge oil and gas reserves for export.

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker)

U.S. Seeks Support For Sanctioning Iran

Nuclear Issues Unresolved, IAEA Says

By Joby Warrick and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 23, 2008; A11

The Bush administration stepped up its campaign for tougher sanctions against Iran yesterday after a U.N. report concluded that Tehran had not fully come clean about past activities that U.S. experts say were part of a secret nuclear weapons program.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said Iran is making steady progress in producing enriched uranium -- a crucial ingredient in both nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power -- in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. But the nuclear watchdog reported no evidence that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear device.

The mixed verdict provided fresh ammunition for a White House that is seeking to rally international support for a third U.N. resolution imposing sanctions against the Islamic republic. Hours after the release of the report in Vienna, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there were now "very strong" grounds for moving quickly at the United Nations to pass such a resolution.

Iran "is clearly making all kinds of statements that suggest that it's not going to deal with the will of the international community," Rice said. "It hasn't answered questions about past activities in covert programs that they say they didn't have."

As she spoke, the State Department was beginning to lobby allies to pass the long-delayed sanctions resolution against Iran. The department announced it will host talks on Monday among the world's major powers, including Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in the hope of getting the resolution passed.

The IAEA concluded that Iran had provided answers to most questions about its nuclear past, with a key exception: It has not yet responded credibly to U.S. allegations that it conducted weapons research into high explosives and missile design in the 1990s.

Those allegations, based on documents taken from a stolen Iranian laptop in 2004, are part of a highly detailed case made by U.S. officials to show that Iran had conducted research into building nuclear weapons through the 1990s. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Iran ended its weapons research in 2003.

IAEA officials confronted Iran this month with evidence of its past weapons research, as supplied by the Bush administration. But Iran, which has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, told IAEA officials that the U.S. claims were "baseless" and dismissed the supporting documents as "fabrications," the IAEA report said. The agency said it plans to share original copies of the U.S. evidence with Iran, following a White House decision last week to allow Iran to inspect the materials on which the U.S. claims are based.

Resolving questions about the laptop documents is key to understanding "the full nature of Iran's past nuclear program," a senior IAEA official said. "We have moved forward, but we are not yet at the end of the road."

In the Iranian capital, the country's top nuclear negotiator hailed the report as a vindication of Tehran's nuclear policies. "The report showed that our activities are peaceful," Saeed Jalili said at a news conference. "From our viewpoint, this issue has ended."

Iranian state television showed celebratory clips of the Iranian flag, the country's unfinished nuclear reactor at Bushehr and colorful flowers. The West "wanted to say that Iran's nuclear activities had been diverted from the peaceful path. Today the agency . . . accepted all of these [allegations] were false," Jalili said.

But even as Iran toasted its success, the Bush administration was setting a course for passage of a sanctions resolution within two weeks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the IAEA's findings strengthen the U.S. case for sanctions while demonstrating that Tehran continues to violate U.N. resolutions calling for the suspension of uranium enrichment.

The report contained a "number of things that were quite disturbing," Khalilzad said, citing Iran's refusal to corroborate U.S. claims that it had operated a military program for nuclear weapons. "They did not own up to it," Khalilzad told reporters at a luncheon at his New York residence. "They did not come clean."

"Yes, they have answered some questions and made some progress on some issues," he said. "But those are not the most central issues, and on the most central issues of the past, there is no progress. In fact, things are getting worse."

The debate over sanctions is expected to be intense. Four countries currently on the Security Council, South Africa, Libya, Indonesia and Vietnam, have expressed reservations about a third resolution against Iran. Opposition from Russia and China had forced the White House to scale back plans for harsh sanctions that would target Iran's military. Instead, a weakened compromise crafted at talks in Berlin on Jan. 22 calls for largely voluntary steps in monitoring financial transactions, arms sales and travel by senior officials linked to proliferation.

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran contributed to this report.

Iran: As Tensions Rise, So Does Rhetoric

By Jeffrey Donovan

September 28, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- To any reader of the English-language blogosphere, September appeared destined to be the month of the Iran war media blitz.

A first sign of an impending war of words over Iran came in late August. In an Internet blog, professor Barnett Rubin, a highly respected authority on Afghanistan at New York University, said a Bush administration insider told him there would be an "Iran war rollout" in the media in September.

Yet it was in Paris, not Washington, that perhaps the first salvo in the war of words with Iran was fired -- a drumbeat of rising rhetoric over the last month that Admiral William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, has called "not helpful" and "not useful."

On August 27, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking to a group of French diplomats, called a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable." He added: "I underline France's full determination to support the alliance's current policy of increasing sanctions, but also to remain open if Iran makes the choice to fulfill its obligations. This policy is the only one that will allow us to escape an alternative, which I consider to be catastrophic. Which alternative? An Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."

Iran Media Blitz

As if on cue, the language of U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking the very next day, also took a confrontational turn toward Tehran.

"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust," Bush told a gathering of U.S. war veterans. "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. And that is why the United States is rallying friends and allies around the world to isolate the regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late."

Publicly, Bush has refused to take military action off the table if Iran does not comply with UN Security Council resolutions demanding that it suspend its uranium enrichment programs.

Led by the United States, the Western powers are seeking to pass a third round of even tougher Security Council sanctions against Iran. However, at a meeting today in New York, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany agreed to delay a vote on tougher sanctions until late November at the earliest.

That outcome is a setback to U.S. and French efforts, yet their cooperation still signals a key break from the recent past.

Unlike during the Iraq war run-up, when France voiced fierce opposition to toppling Saddam Hussein, this time Paris is backing up Bush with tough talk of its own.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner weighed in with perhaps even stronger words than his boss, stating on September 16 that the world should brace for war with Iran if negotiations to end its nuclear program fail. Although he later tempered his comments, Kouchner and Sarkozy's rhetoric starkly contrasts with that of former French President Jacques Chirac, whose vocal opposition to war with Iraq dealt a blow to U.S.-France relations.

So what’s motivated France to talk tough now? Jean-Pierre Darnis, a political analyst at the University of Nice and Rome's Institute of Foreign Affairs, says the new French leader is partly motivated by a genuine desire to repair relations with Washington. Darnis adds that France clearly wants to avoid war with Iran, but sees its threat as a necessary prod to change Tehran’s behavior.

"Sarkozy said: 'I don't like the word war. I don't want to use the word war,' after Kouchner [used the word]," Darnis says. "But nevertheless, he is very open to a large panel of actions against Iran."

On September 25 at the UN General Assembly in New York, Sarkozy reiterated that an Iranian nuclear bomb would be an "unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world." He was echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said, “If Iran were to acquire the nuclear bomb, the consequences would be disastrous."

Robert Whitman, who studies European foreign policy at London’s Chatham House think tank, says the tough talk from Paris, and to a lesser extent Berlin, is partly aimed at permanent UN Security Council members China and Russia to persuade them to drop their opposition to new Iran sanctions since the alternative -- namely, war -- should appear so much worse to them.

New France

But Whitman adds that Sarkozy’s rhetoric should also be taken at face value -- that is, it reflects genuine French concern over the danger of Iran’s nuclear program:

"I think that’s partly why the French have been using the language why they have, because they think the Iran case is a very serious test of the credibility of the international nonproliferation regime for nuclear weapons," Whitman says. "And I think that their analysis is that it will have grave consequences for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East if Iran is not stopped. And the French do believe that they are being a responsible international citizen by bearing down on the Iranians."

But what about the Iranians? Are they, too, somehow served by all the war talk?

Speaking on September 25 at the UN, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad vowed Tehran would continue to defy any UN resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program. He said the nuclear question was "closed" as a political issue and that Iran would pursue the monitoring of its nuclear program "through its appropriate legal path," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog.

British analyst Whitman says the media circus that accompanied Ahmadinejad’s trip to the United States, along with the hard-line rhetoric against him, may actually be helping him in his domestic political battles back home. "Certainly, in terms of external criticism of the regime, and particularly criticism in the U.S., this will obviously assist him in terms of his struggle against moderates in Tehran," Whitman says.

Others have noted that every time the Iranian crisis escalates, the price of oil increases, further filling petroleum-rich Tehran's coffers.

The war drums have also been beating in the right-wing U.S. media, particularly among those "neoconservative" pundits who pushed successfully for the Iraq invasion and now reportedly seek to topple the clerical regime in Iran. Reports say their pro-Iran war views may be shared at least in part by Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Bush administration.

According to the U.S. magazine "Newsweek," in its October 1 edition, David Wurmser, a former adviser to Cheney on the Middle East, was considering a plan to press Israel to strike Iranian nuclear targets in a move that could bring the United States into a war with Tehran. Wurmser, in remarks today to the "New York Sun" daily, categorically denied those allegations.

But in a clear signal of the mood in Washington, this week the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would tighten sanctions on Iran. The bill, which passed by a vote of 397 to 16, also calls on the U.S. government to list Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist group. The bill calls for sanctions against foreign companies that have U.S. subsidiaries who invest in Iran's energy sector.

A day later, the U.S. Senate passed a similar nonbinding resolution on Iran. Critics such as Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia said the motion "could be read as a tantamount to a declaration of war on Iran."

But if the martial rhetoric serves the interests of "hawks" in Washington, some say it also aides "hawks" in the Middle East opposed to Iran’s ascendance in the region.

Independent author Robert Baer, who spent two decades in the Muslim world as a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, predicted in a recent article for the website of the U.S. magazine "Time" that there would be a military strike against Iran "within six months."

Military Caution

Last week, U.S. Admiral Fallon told Al-Jazeera television that he believed there would not be war with Iran, and called the war talk unhelpful. Similarly, General John Abizaid, Fallon's predecessor as chief U.S. commander in the Middle East, said this month that while every effort should be made to stop Iran's apparent march toward nuclear weapons, the world could live with and deter a nuclear-armed Iran.

Baer, for his part, contends that part of the Bush administration, led by Cheney, wants to strike Iran for a number of reasons including the nuclear threat, Shi’ite Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and the region, its ties to terrorism, and its alleged threat to Sunni regimes friendly to Washington, such as Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis "are saying basically, if you want to keep your 10 million barrels or 9 million barrels [of oil] a day flowing freely in international markets, and keeping the price relatively low on oil, you better come to our protection," Baer recently said. "You better do something about Iran. And they’re telling us, or what they’re telling me, is that you have to decapitate the Iranian regime."

Today's UN talks in New York effectively gave the green light for IAEA chief Muhammad el-Baradei to carry on in his efforts to try and clear up doubts about Iran's past nuclear activities. El-Baradei recently gave Iran three months to clear its record in a move criticized by Washington as a tactic to stall sanctions and evade the key issue of halting enrichment.

Reports say the Western powers are considering their own economic and political sanctions against Iran, should efforts to pass a new resolution in the Security Council prove fruitless.

Where the Iran story ultimately goes is anyone’s guess. But as September 2007 draws to a close, some have recalled a famous remark by former White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

About Washington’s Iraq media blitz in September 2002, a half-year before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Card said, "From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August."

North Korea nuclear talks shift focus to energy

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions shifted focus on Saturday to U.S. energy aid for the impoverished state as delegates circulated a text of a proposed joint statement.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday authorized $25 million in aid for the North, which would provide up to 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, as a reward for Pyongyang's commitment to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said he had seen the draft text which Kyodo news agency reported include steps North Korea must take by the end of the year.

"It's a pretty complete draft and we made some comments, but I don't know what the others think about it," he told reporters. "So I don't know if we will have a joint statement or not."

North Korea, which tested a nuclear device last year, shut down and sealed its Yongbyon nuclear plant and allowed U.N. monitors back to the site in July.

Those were its first steps in carrying out a breakthrough agreement reached in February at the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China.

But it must now disable its atomic facilities and make a declaration of all of its nuclear programs, in return for a huge injection of fuel aid and an end to diplomatic isolation.

China and South Korea have delivered initial fuel shipments and Russia is expected to do so too, but Japan has indicated it will not participate unless North Korea addresses the issue of Japanese citizens the North abducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The issue of abductions by the DPRK poses a serious challenge to human dignity," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters at the United Nations on Friday.

ROAD MAP

Hill had initially said this round of talks would aim to set targets for disablement to the end of the year. He later scaled back expectations, saying negotiators hoped to agree to a "road map".

Hill stressed that disablement of the nuclear facilities, a step towards complete dismantling, had to mean that it would be a long and costly process for Pyongyang to restart its reactors.

"We have a common definition, which is the idea that if there were a return -- and of course we're not planning a return -- to plutonium production, that it should be made difficult by process of disablement," Hill said.

"Our definition of difficult is several months and we would argue it should be 12 months."

In 2002, North Korea was able to restart the Yongbyon reactor in two months, after a previous disarmament agreement fell apart.

South Korea said the issue of North Korea's nuclear ambitions should not be allowed to drag on.

"This problem, if not resolved soon, will seriously undermine the NPT regime," said South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, referring to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

"It also has significant implications for peace and security in Northeast Asia and beyond," he told the U.N. General Assembly.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in New York)

New Iran Nuclear Sanctions Delayed

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:42 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- In a setback for the United States, Iran won a two-month reprieve from new U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program on Friday. The Bush administration and its European allies ceded to Russian and Chinese demands to give Tehran more time to address international concerns.

An agreement reached in talks here between six key nations and supported by the European Union gives Iran until November to make progress in answering questions about the program that the United States and others alleged is a cover for nuclear weapons development.

The decision marks another blow for Washington in its diplomatic struggle to toughen existing U.N. sanctions on Iran, whose leader this week declared to the U.N. General Assembly that the nuclear issue was ''closed'' and vowed to defy attempts to add new penalties.

The Bush administration had hoped to capitalize on growing international frustration with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline stance in refusing to halt uranium enrichment and reprocessing that he insists are purely for peaceful civilian energy use.

Despite increasing support for new sanctions in Europe -- particularly from Britain, France and Germany -- Russia and China refused to yield, insisting on giving Tehran more time to accept an offer for negotiations in exchange for suspending its nuclear activities.

After talks hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, backed by the E.U.'s top diplomat, agreed to delay a new sanctions resolution.

A joint statement from the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany said they would finalize the new resolution and bring it to a vote unless reports in November from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and the E.U. foreign policy chief ''show a positive outcome of their efforts.''

At the same time, Rice said, they would continue work on a new sanctions resolution so if there were no progress, the resolution would be ready to be introduced in the Security Council for a vote.

''We'll be working to finalize the text and we will be watching to see what progress takes place ... in the November timeframe so that we can move to Security Council sanctions should there not be progress,'' Rice told reporters after the meeting in a New York hotel.

She also noted that the United States and the European members of the so-called ''P5+1'' group would pursue bilateral financial sanctions against Iran and Iranian government entities. For its part, the United States is considering imposing such measures against elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

However, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner signaled Europe wasn't ready to move on multilateral sanctions quickly. The French, British and Germans will meet with the full EU on Oct. 15 to discuss sanctions, but will wait until the Security Council decides before imposing their own measures, he said.

Kouchner said 14 different types of sanctions were being considered, and he wouldn't rule out Iran's oil industry, the Revolutionary Guards, banks and travel visas as possible targets.

''Nobody refused to follow up, to have a discussion on these 14 items,'' Kouchner told reporters after the meeting, but he added that some leaders were ''completely reluctant'' to accept some of them.

Rice denied that the agreement to put off U.N. sanctions was tantamount to a U.S. cave-in to Russia and China although her top negotiator in the matter, the State Department's No. 3 diplomat Nicholas Burns, allowed that ''the alchemy of this group is such that anything is going to be a compromise.''

Burns, who will meet at least twice with his counterparts in the P5+1 before November to produce a new draft sanctions resolution, maintained that the statement sent ''a very tough and strict message to Iran.''

He said the U.S. saw the statement as a commitment by all signatories to back a third sanctions resolution if there is no positive Iranian response. But U.N. diplomats cautioned that what constitutes a positive response may differ, especially between the U.S. and Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who exchanged sharp words with Rice on the sanctions matter earlier this week, appeared to confirm that thinking by saying Friday's agreement did not automatically mean new sanctions in November.

''The statement is very unambiguous,'' Lavrov told reporters. ''What we discussed today is to concentrate on doing everything to help negotiations to succeed.''

In the statement, the ministers and E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana welcomed a July agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency to answer questions about 20 years of nuclear activity -- most of it secret until just over four years ago.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to present a report to the agency's board of directors in late November on the status of his investigation, which the United States has downplayed because it only relates to past, and not current or future, actions.

Two U.N. resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran have failed to persuade it to suspend uranium enrichment and in a Tuesday address to the U.N. General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said the nuclear issue is ''closed'' and vowed to defy any U.N. Security Council move for more sanctions.

No date was set for submitting the new sanctions resolution to a vote in the Security Council because the six nations want to give Solana and ElBaradei flexibility in producing their reports, Burns said.

^------

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer and Lily Hindy contributed to this report.

Split in Group Delays Vote on Sanctions Against Iran

By HELENE COOPER

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 28 — The United States, Britain and France chose unity over speed and agreed on Friday to delay until November a United Nations Security Council vote on a third sanctions resolution against Iran.

The delay, a concession to Russia, China and Germany — the other three countries in the fragile coalition of six world powers that are seeking to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions — came after a week of haggling on the outskirts of the General Assembly. The six countries issued a statement advising Iran that a diplomatic offer of economic incentives remained on the table if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program.

The statement said the six powers would complete the new resolution and bring it to a vote unless reports from the European foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the International Atomic Energy Agency in November “show a positive outcome of their efforts.”

Bush administration officials, who have been pushing diplomats to increase sanctions against Iran, said the move to put off a decision until November reflected the harsh realities of getting all six countries to speak with one voice. While officials from Britain, France and the United States were pressing for another sanctions vote right away, China and Russia in particular wanted to wait for another report from the nuclear monitoring agency.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose often volatile relationship with her Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, erupted again this week as Russia refused to go along with immediate sanctions, sought on Friday to minimize the differences between their countries.

“We’ve made it very clear that we’ve always wanted to keep the two tracks under way,” she told reporters in New York. American officials routinely use the phrase “two tracks” to refer to both the sanctions and the negotiations with Iran. “We will be watching to see what progress takes place.”

But her deputy, R. Nicholas Burns, the top United States negotiator on the Iran issue, acknowledged that “the alchemy of this group is such that anything is going to be a compromise.” He took issue with the speech by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before the General Assembly this week, when Mr. Ahmadinejad said that the nuclear dispute with the West, which believes that Iran is working on a nuclear weapons program, is now “closed.”

“I’m sorry, he was badly mistaken,” Mr. Burns told reporters during a news conference. “Here, he has six ministers saying so.”

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Clearly, American diplomats were hoping for a bit more this week, but signs emerged early on that they would not get it. During a lunch of ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized nations on Wednesday, Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov exchanged sharp words on the right time to push for more Iran sanctions.

One European diplomat who was present said that “it’s getting to the point that you can’t get any work done if those two are in the room together,” referring to Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov. The diplomat spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about tension between Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov.

Mr. Lavrov told The Associated Press after the lunch that he had strong words with Ms. Rice about whether the time was right for new sanctions when the International Atomic Energy Agency had struck an agreement with Iran about its past activities. Ms. Rice has been clear that she does not think much of the recent forays by Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency’s director, into the Iran negotiations, telling reporters on her airplane last week that the agency would be better off leaving diplomacy to diplomats.

Mr. ElBaradei reached an agreement in July with Iranian officials in which Tehran agreed to provide the agency with answers to questions about more than two decades of nuclear activity, most of it secret.

U.S. and North Korea Reach Nuclear Deal

By DAVID E. SANGER

The top American negotiator with North Korea said yesterday that the country had agreed to disable its main nuclear fuel production plant by the end of the year and to account to international monitors for all of its nuclear programs, including what American intelligence agencies say they believe was a second, secret program purchased from Pakistan.

At the end of a two-day meeting in Geneva — exactly the kind of one-on-one session that the Bush administration had refused to hold in recent years — Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said the two sides had agreed on what would be a speedy next step, following action by North Korea this summer to turn off its main nuclear reactor.

“One thing that we agreed on is that the D.P.R.K. will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” Mr. Hill told reporters in Geneva, according to The Associated Press. He was using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s formal name.

But in a separate news conference, his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, who heads the North Korean negotiating team, made no mention of an end-of-the-year deadline. He spoke instead of an accord to disable North Korea’s equipment and provide an accounting of its facilities, fuel and weapons in return for what he called “political and economic compensation.”

If the North Koreans meet the schedule and disable their equipment, it would be a major victory for the Bush administration, at a time when it is eager to claim progress on some diplomatic front to offset its problems in Iraq. Whether to offer the North rewards, including oil and, eventually, removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and diplomatic recognition, has been the subject of a six-year struggle within the Bush administration.

But most of the hawks who have opposed such offers are now gone, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has given Mr. Hill far more latitude to strike a deal, and to meet the North Koreans outside of “six party talks” — the discussions that have also included Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. Those talks are expected to resume in mid-September, and the weekend meeting was cast as a prelude to any agreement reached there.

The hawks are still unhappy, and have suggested that Mr. Hill is giving away too much.

“There is still simply no evidence that Pyongyang has made a decision to abandon its long-held strategic objective to have a credible nuclear-weapons capability,” John R. Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and, in President Bush’s first term, the top State Department official on counterproliferation, wrote in The Asian Wall Street Journal this weekend.

“This inconvenient fact should make it impossible for the State Department to concede on other issues, even if it were inclined to do so,” he said. “Creative minds are therefore working on ways to explain that any forthcoming North Korean declaration of its nuclear capabilities is ‘full and complete,’ thus eliminating the remaining troubling obstacles to full normalization of relations.”

When the Bush administration came into office, North Korea was still appearing to abide by a nuclear freeze that it had negotiated in 1994 with the Clinton administration. But that deal fell apart after the Bush administration accused the North of cheating on the agreement, purchasing uranium enrichment equipment from Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear network, based in Pakistan.

While Mr. Khan and his associates have confirmed they made such sales, it is unclear what, if anything, the North did with the equipment. Mr. Hill said yesterday that that question would have to be answered as part of any full declaration. American intelligence agencies said earlier this year that they were uncertain what progress the North had made with that program, if any.

The North Koreans conducted a nuclear test last October, though it was not entirely successful. It is unclear how many other nuclear devices they have produced, though intelligence agencies have estimated that they may have the material for between eight and a dozen. The administration’s critics, including Mr. Bolton, have said it is almost impossible to imagine that the North would say how many weapons it had or where those weapons, or the fuel to manufacture new ones, were situated. So far, there is no agreement for an intrusive inspection system.

Still, if the facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are truly “disabled,” a term no one has yet defined, it would probably prevent the North from manufacturing new weapons and expanding its arsenal. Mr. Kim said yesterday that “we made it clear, we showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities.”

Mr. Hill said that “we have to work out some of the details” on exactly what facilities would be disabled. “We will have a declaration in time to disable what needs to be disabled,” he said, adding that “for example, the Yongbyon reactor would have to be included.”

North Korea agrees to declare, disable nuclear programs by end of year

From the Associated Press

9:07 AM PDT, September 2, 2007

GENEVA — North Korea has agreed to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of this year, the chief U.S. negotiator said today.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said two days of talks between the United States and North Korea in Geneva had been "very good and very substantive" and would help improve chances of a successful meeting later this month with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program and improving relations between North Korea and other countries.

"One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Hill told reporters, using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Hill said the declaration will also include uranium enrichment programs, which the United States fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Kim Gye Gwan, the head of the North Korean delegation, did not comment immediately to reporters outside the North Korean mission.

Hill said earlier Sunday that improving U.S. relations with North Korea will depend on other progress in the talks, saying it "is a relationship that we will continue to try to build step by step with the understanding that we're not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea."

"To the extent that we can move quickly to denuclearization, we can move quickly to normalization," he added.

Hill said both sides also discussed what needs to be done for North Korea to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

He said they also had a good discussion of what North Korea wants to achieve and how it can improve relations with Japan.

He said he expected the next full session of the six-nation talks would be held in mid-September and that it would produce a "more detailed implementation plan for 'disablement"' of North Korea's nuclear facilities.

The meeting in Geneva was part of a flurry of "working group" sessions called for in February's six-nation accord in which North Korea agreed to disable its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor and declare and eventually dismantle all its nuclear activities.

In exchange, the economically struggling North will receive oil and other aid. The U.S., as part of the agreement, promised to begin the process of removing the country from the terrorism list and work toward full diplomatic relations.

North Korea has already received 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from Seoul in return for the shutdown of its plutonium reactor in July. The energy-starved country will eventually get further energy or other aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in return for irreversibly disabling the reactor and ending all its nuclear programs, but has yet to set a date by when it will disable its nuclear facilities.

Another point of disagreement has been over allegations that North Korea has a second, undeclared nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium. North Korea said recently it was willing to discuss the issue, although it did not acknowledge having such a program.

Years of tension and deadlock over North Korea's nuclear program -- which peaked with the country's nuclear test last October -- have started to ease in recent months as the talks have made progress.

On Two Fronts, One Nuclear, Iran Is Defiant

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and NAZILA FATHI

TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 2 — Iran’s leaders issued dual, defiant statements on Sunday, with the president announcing that the nation had 3,000 active centrifuges to enrich uranium and the top ayatollah appointing a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards commander who once advocated military force against students.

The pairing of the messages, just days after the United Nations’ top nuclear official said Iran was striking conciliatory poses, appeared intended to reaffirm the country’s refusal to back down to pressure from the United States over its nuclear program and its role in Iraq, political analysts in Iran said. And it came as the Bush administration was celebrating progress in its talks with North Korea to shut down that country’s nuclear programs.

Indeed, the timing and tone of Iran’s declarations may be more politically significant than their content, particularly in the case of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran had finally reached its stated goal of developing 3,000 centrifuges.

Many technical experts have expressed skepticism over Iran’s periodic claims of enrichment breakthroughs, saying the assertions often turn out to be exaggerated.

That seemed to be the case again on Sunday, though nuclear experts said that even if Mr. Ahmadinejad was overreaching, it would be only a matter of time before the boast became true. The most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, released Thursday, said Iran had 1,968 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main Natanz plant, 328 in testing, and 328 in assembly — for a total of 2,624. The report noted that the assessment was accurate as of Aug. 19, or two weeks ago.

The goal of 3,000 centrifuges is significant to nuclear experts: they say that if Iran could spin that many centrifuges nonstop for a year, it could make enough highly enriched uranium for a single atom bomb.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, the atomic energy agency director general, said in an interview last week that Iran seemed to be intentionally slowing its progress in an effort to strike a conciliatory note as the United Nations Security Council demanded it stop the nuclear work completely. “My gut feeling,” he said, “is that it’s primarily for political reasons.”

Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s new claim was a direct challenge to that notion, and to efforts by the United States and European countries to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. “The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” state television quoted the president as saying.

The White House warned that a new round of sanctions was likely in the wake of Iran’s refusal to cooperate. “This kind of announcement is inconsistent with Iran’s recent comments on cooperation with the I.A.E.A.,” said a spokesman, Robert W. Saliterman.

The coinciding message about the change at the top of the Revolutionary Guards, made by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had distinct ramifications for the United States as well.

There have been reports that the Bush administration is considering declaring the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, opening the way to further economic sanctions against Iran because the Guards are involved in nearly every aspect of the state-controlled economy. (Last week, a senior administration official involved in the internal debate said the designation may instead be limited to the Quds Force, which the United States accuses of being particularly active in Iraq.)

The Revolutionary Guards are also believed to be deeply involved in the country’s nuclear program, and any action against it or the Quds Force is perceived in Washington as a way of stepping up pressure on Iran’s nuclear aspirations as well.

Iran still rejects Western accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons, insisting that its program is solely for peaceful purposes. And it has reached agreement with the atomic energy agency finally to answer questions about many years of past nuclear activities that have fueled suspicions that it has been secretly trying to develop a weapons program.

But that agreement was dismissed by the United States as a half step that ignored Washington and Europe’s primary demand: that Iran stop enrichment.

Iran’s statements, in addition to ratcheting up defiance of international pressure, had distinct domestic political overtones as well, analysts said. “He has to feed his domestic clientele,” one European diplomat who works with the atomic agency said Sunday.

In Tehran, Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst and former government official, said, “What is important is the spirit that dominates the system, and that has not changed.”

The news of the change at the top of the Revolutionary Guards, in particular, was greeted with surprise and keen interest by Iranians.

Ayatollah Khamenei announced that Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, who had led the force for a decade, would be replaced by Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari.

The Guards, which has about 200,000 members, controls a huge empire that has a stake in every significant corner of Iran’s economy and its civil system of governance. Mr. Ahmadinejad was a member of the Guards during the 1980 to 1988 war with Iraq, and he has placed dozens of former members in leadership positions around the country and in the central government in Tehran.

The Guards are, by design, the most economic and politically independent body in the country, outside of the supreme leader’s office. General Jafari has an established record of support for the theocratic system of government, and its hard-line policies.

In 1999, he showed a willingness to use the guard’s military force to quell student riots. In a letter to Mohammad Khatami, then the president, he wrote, “We have reached the end of our rope and can no longer tolerate it if the situation is not confronted.”

David E. Sanger and William J. Broad contributed reporting.