Date:13/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/13/stories/2007031303221400.htm

International

Iran to approach U.N. directly

Ian Black

Ahmadinejad to "defend the country's rights"

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to respond in person to intensifying international pressure over his country's controversial nuclear programme by taking his case directly to the United Nations Security Council in New York, it emerged on Sunday.

Mr. Ahmadinejad wanted to ``defend the rights of the Iranian nation in exploiting peaceful nuclear energy,'' state TV quoted Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham as saying.

The President would attend if the Security Council holds a meeting on Iran's nuclear programme, the TV said. South Africa's Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, whose country holds the Council's rotating presidency, said that if Mr. Ahmadinejad made a formal request, ``it would be very difficult to deny him that opportunity''.

The U.S. said it was not aware that any such request had been made. Western countries, led by the U.S., insist that Iran's nuclear programme is a covert attempt to produce atomic weapons, a view reinforced by Tehran's continuing refusal to freeze uranium enrichment. Diplomatic efforts are under way to agree on new U.N. sanctions to force it to comply.

Sensitive issue

The sensitivity of the issue is highlighted in a report on Sunday by a leading British foreign affairs think-tank warning that Israel — with its own large but undeclared nuclear arsenal — faces ``dire and far-reaching consequences'' if it takes military action against the Iranian programme. Israeli airstrikes were possible, though ``extremely risky'', and Iran could retaliate with massive ballistic missile attacks on cities such as Tel Aviv or Haifa with ``substantial'' loss of life, says Yossi Mekelberg of Chatham House's Middle East programme. ``An Israeli military operation against Iran would hurt Israel's long-term interests. It would be detrimental to Israel's overall security and the political and economic consequences would be dire and far-reaching,'' the report said. But it warned too that the Israelis may feel compelled to act if they believed Tehran was close to developing a nuclear bomb.

``Any military operation against Iran, as well as involving many casualties, would enhance the appeal of extremism in the Muslim world, inside and outside Iran, at the expense of the moderates.''

If diplomacy failed, the report proposes that Israel could move to a policy of deterrence by openly declaring its own nuclear capability, mirroring the ``balance of terror'' that kept the peace between the West and the Soviet bloc in the cold war. —