WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for immediate and “crippling” sanctions against Iran on Tuesday, just as the Islamic Republic began its production of higher-grade nuclear fuel.

“Iran is rushing forward to produce nuclear weapons…I believe that what is required right now is tough action by the international community,” Netanyahu told European diplomats that dealt only with the Iranian issue.

“This means crippling sanctions and these sanctions must be applied right now,” he declared, adding that Iran’s nuclear development was being carried out in “brazen defiance” of the international comminity. “What is required is a lot more than words.”

“The international community must decide if it is serious about neutralizing this threat to Israel, the region and the entire world,” Netanyahu added.

The director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Tuesday that the Islamic Republic would not need to enrich uranium to a higher level if the West were to provides the fuel it needs for the Tehran research reactor.

Iran started enriching nuclear fuel to 20 percent on Tuesday from its present 3.5 percent, a defiant move that immediately increased Western pressure for new international sanctions on the major oil producer.

“Whenever they provide the fuel, we will halt production of 20 percent,” Ali Akbar Salehi, who also serves as Iran’s vice president, told state TV.

A spokesman of the atomich agency, Ali Shirzadian, said Tuesday morning that “preparatory work” had started at 9:30 A.M. local time and that production would formally get under way at about 1 P.M.

“Today we started to make 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel … in the presence of IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors,” an unnamed official told Iran’s Arabic-language state television, al-Alam.

Reacting to the announcement, the United States said on Tuesday it wanted the United Nations Security Council to move quickly to enforce sanctions on Iran, demanding approval of a resolution “within weeks, not months.”

But China, which like the U.S. holds a Security Council veto, remains reluctant to support sanctions and on Tuesday called for more talks in the wake of calls by other world powers for possible sanctions on Iran over its nuclear developments.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu refused to comment on sanctions
at a news conference, saying only: “I hope the relevant parties will step up efforts and push for progress in the dialogue and negotiations.”

The IAEA said on Monday that it feared Iran’s plan to start producing higher-enriched uranium would damage chances to save a proposed atomic fuel supply deal between Tehran and world powers and is prepared to intervene as necessary.

Iran plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities during the next Iranian year, its atomic energy chief was quoted as saying on Sunday, in comments likely to further raise tension with the West.

Iranian insistence on pushing ahead with its nuclear program, which it claims is for civilian purposes but which the West fears is an attempt to build an atom bomb, now seems likely to provoke a strong international response.

The United States and France declared earlier Monday it was time to impose new sanctions over Iran’s nuclear defiance.

“This is real blackmail,” said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. “The only thing that we can do, alas, is apply sanctions given that negotiations are not possible.”

Speaking at a separate event in Paris, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said more pressure had to be applied.

“We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together,” he said.

Gates said the international community had “offered Iran multiple opportunities to provide reassurance about its intentions with respect to its nuclear program”.

Russian officials also called on Monday for the international community to prepare to act response to Iran’s announcement that it would start making higher-grade reactor fuel.

Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said a strengthening of international economic sanctions should be considered.

“The international community should swiftly react to the news in order to send Tehran a new signal of its intent to react with serious measures, right up to a strengthening of economic sanctions,” a spokeswoman for Kosachyov quoted him as saying