WASHINGTON - A hawkish U.S. official said yesterday that Iran has warned it could make enough bomb-grade material in a year to produce a nuclear weapon, a threat that may boost a U.S. push to report Tehran to the United Nations.
In recent weeks, Iran has intensified its standoff over its nuclear programs and the United States has said it is increasingly likely the U.N. Security Council would take up the case against the Islamic republic for possible sanctions.
U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton said Iran had sought in negotiations with European powers to pressure them to ease their opposition to its suspected weapons programs.
"They've told the EU three (Britain, France and Germany) that they could produce, they could enrich enough uranium for a nuclear weapon within a year and they could produce nuclear weapons within the range of our own assessment, which is a way of threatening the Europeans to get them to back down," the senior official said at a Washington think tank session on Iran.
U.S. officials with access to intelligence estimates say Iran can achieve a bomb in three to five years and the United States believes that would be a danger in the Middle East, notably to its close ally Israel.
Oil-rich Iran says its nuclear programs, which the U.N. nuclear watchdog has been monitoring, are for peaceful energy projects.
Bolton, a hawk in the Bush administration who is skeptical talks with Iran will be successful, said the Europeans had assured the United States they would not bow to the pressure.
The European Union three have been negotiating with Iran and share information with the United States on the talks, although they have given few details publicly about high-level meetings they held last month, diplomats said.
The three won a promise from Iran last year to suspend uranium enrichment.
But Iran was angered when the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency issued a tough rebuke over cooperation with its inspectors in June. And last month, it said it would resume the manufacture, assembly and testing of enrichment centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for weapons.
Despite reluctance among the 35-nation IAEA to ratchet up the diplomatic pressure on Iran by referring it to the Security Council, Bolton said that move was "long overdue" and the watchdog had an opportunity to do so at a meeting next month.
"The odds of referring the issue to the Security Council whether in September or at some point in the near future are rising rapidly," he said.
Story by Saul Hudson
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
