WASHINGTON, March 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran's statement of restarting its uranium processing showed it was not taking seriously its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to suspend all reprocessing activities, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Thursday.

    The statement showed "more and more evidence that Iran was not taking seriously the requirements, not even taking seriously its own commitments to suspend all reprocessing in a way that the IAEA was able to define as a real suspension," Boucher said at a news briefing.

    The comments came after Iran said on Wednesday it would resume uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes once its problems with the IAEA were resolved.

    Boucher urged the IAEA to "stay on the case, continue to scrutinize Iran's performance against the benchmarks that the IAEAboard itself set, and against the commitments that Iran itself has made."

    The next IAEA board meeting in June will be "the next opportunity to assess Iran's performance, to asses Iran's performance against the IAEA standard against its own commitments," Boucher said.

    US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday he was confident that the IAEA would warn Iran it could face sanctions over its nuclear programs.

    As a compromise between the United States and its European allies, a draft resolution reached tentatively on Tuesday in Vienna criticized Iran for failing to disclose sensitive parts of its nuclear programs, but stopped short of seeking any sanctions until at least June.

    The United States has been pressing for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programs, but France, Britain and Germany want a softer approach to help Iran cooperate with the IAEA.

    Iran has claimed that it is pursuing a peaceful nuclear program to generate electricity. Enditem