Tuesday, March 7 2006 10:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the UN Security Council will intervene 'quite actively,' a senior State Department official has said.

The message to Iran is that it has 'crossed the international red line' and engaged in unacceptable enrichment activity 'and there must be a UN Security Council process to deal with that,' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.



Burns did not say what the United States would ask the Security Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line toward Tehran it might not be able to persuade other nations to impose economic or other penalties on Iran.

The UN nuclear watchdog agency, which voted to refer the dispute to the Security Council, will reaffirm its stance this week "Unless Iran does a dramatic about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities," Burns said at the Heritage Foundation, a private research group.

His remarks followed a State Department spokesman's dismissal of reports an eleventh-hour compromise might be struck over Iran's nuclear programme.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said at his agency's Vienna headquarters that the council might not have to consider Iran's actions. Talks between Moscow and Tehran have focused on shifting Iran's fuel enrichment activities to Russia.

The United States has long spearheaded a campaign to haul Iran before the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or other sanctions. There was no hint of optimism at the State Department about the latest efforts to defuse the issue, which ElBaradei said he hoped could produce a resolution in a week.