Sunday, March 5 2006 12:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Ahead of tomorrow's IAEA meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue, the United States has said that there is no rush for sanctions against Tehran.

"Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind (against Iran). We would love to solve this within the IAEA framework, by having Iran react to the requirements of the February 4th (IAEA) resolution.

But thus far they haven't shown any inclination to do that," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a briefing in Islamabad yesterday (Mar 05 2006), the text of which was also made available here.

On February 4, the IAEA governors reported Iran to the UN Security Council, but gave Tehran until March 6 for diplomacy before the world body decides what measures to take.

About tomorrow's IAEA Board of Goverors' meeting in Vienna, Rice, who was accompanying President George W Bush to his visit to Pakistan, said "After the (IAEA) Board report, I think the Security Council will have to have a serious discussion about what the next steps will be."

"The referral has happened. It is in the Security Council now. The question is, what action will the Security Council take. And we still have a few days to see what Iranian behavior would be.

"But I would expect that you'd need at least something that tries to give the IAEA the weight of the Security Council, in order to get Iran to do something. But I don't think people are talking about going directly to sanctions," Rice remarked in response to a question.

Violation of the Paris Agreement

"I keep reading in newspapers a breakthrough here, or a breakthrough there. I don't think that - when you talk to the diplomats, I think what you're getting is that Iranians have still not said the words that everybody needs them to say, which is that, first of all, they'll suspend activities that they restarted in violation of the Paris Agreement.

Secondly, that they understand that a civil nuclear programme for Iran is going to have to be one that does not include enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian territory.

"Those are the bottom lines, and I haven't heard anything to this point that suggests the Iranians have accepted those bottom lines," Rice said.

The Paris Agreement was signed between Iran and France, Germany and the UK with the support of the EU, under which all sides had reaffirmed their commitment to Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The US Secretary of State said: "I think they (Iranians) are trying to find some way to fade the heat. They'd love to get us back into a situation where they're talking, but doing all the things that they've been doing since they broke the Paris Agreement. And I don't think anybody is prepared to have them do that."

The IAEA board of are meeting in Vienna tomorrow to send an assessment of Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council.

US State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli said the Board would discuss a February report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei that "validates many of the concerns and issues that we've been raising for some time."

In his report, ElBaradei said Iran had failed to answer crucial questions about its nuclear programme.