Vaidi branded the resolution as "politically motivated since it is not based on any legal or technical grounds."

VIENNA, February 4, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted on Saturday, February 4, to send the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council, triggering an immediate threat from Tehran to resume full-scale uranium enrichment.

The resolution passed by 27-3 with five abstentions, but puts off any UN action against Iran for at least a month, an IAEA spokeswoman was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The added time is intended in the hopes of a diplomatic solution to the standoff before the next IAEA meeting in Vienna on March 6.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei will be filing a detailed report and assessment of the Iranian nuclear program for the March meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.

The US and Europe claim that the Islamic republic is seeking nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran categorically denies.

Iran, which insists its nuclear program is purely for civilian energy purposes, has raised the stakes in the dispute by removing UN seals on equipment that purifies uranium.

Compromise

The resolution is a compromise between the US desire for immediate Security Council action against Iran and Russia's demand for a delay for more diplomacy.

Washington has worked, since the IAEA board began meeting Thursday, to get as many nations on board for what is a historic step in the international community's confrontation with Iran.

The five permanent Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Germany closed ranks over the resolution to take Iran to the Security Council.

Unlike the IAEA, the Security Council has enforcement powers.

Russia, a key trade partner of Iran, hopes Tehran can be convinced to respond to calls by the IAEA to suspend all nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with agency inspectors in order for the crisis to be defused without the Security Council imposing sanctions.

Moscow is sponsoring a compromise proposal for Iran to carry out uranium enrichment, which makes what can be nuclear reactor fuel but also bomb material, in Russia.

Denial

Iran denied Saturday reports that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered the resumption of nuclear fuel work in response to the Security Council referral, reported Reuters.

"Ahmadinejad has not taken any fresh measures today," said a spokesman for the presidential office.

The Mehr news agency reported Ahmadinejad had immediately issued an order for the resumption of nuclear fuel work.

A Vienna-based Iranian diplomat said Ahmadinejad could not make such an order until Iran later on Saturday delivered a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog expressing its intention to resume enrichment and stop snap UN atomic checks.

Politically-Motivated

An angry Iran immediately threatened to resume full-scale uranium enrichment in retaliation for being brought before the UN Security Council.

"Our government has to implement full-scale enrichment," Javad Vaidi, head of the Iranian delegation to the IAEA meeting told reporters.

He maintained that the resolution "is politically motivated since it is not based on any legal or technical grounds."

Vaidi said Iran "has to bring into force immediately ... the law passed almost unanimously by the parliament in 2005, in order to suspend the voluntary implementation of Additional Protocol which has been for three years implemented as if it has been ratified, and the voluntary suspension of commercial scale enrichment activities."

The Iranian legislature said that applying the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, which allows for wider IAEA inspections, and suspending full-scale enrichment should cease if Iran were brought before the Security Council.

A senior Iranian official warned earlier Saturday that the government would be unable to halt its nuclear activities if the country was referred to the council.

"If the case is sent or even reported to the UN Security Council, based on the law of our parliament, our government has no way of stopping nuclear activities," Abbas Araghchi, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, said at a high-level security conference under way in Munich.

"I hope that Europe doesn't choose this line of confrontation," he said.

"We did whatever we could. But as you know after three years of negotiations we left empty-handed."