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VIENNA, Feb. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The extraordinary
meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors, which is debating whether to refer
Iran's nuclear issue to the UN Security Council, was postponed to Saturday.
Diplomats said here Friday that a majority on the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s 35-nation board backed the referral
but the European Union (EU) held up the vote in a bid to hammer out a broad
consensus with developing states without abstentions.
The delay arose from developing countries' attempts
since Thursday to soften an EU-initiated resolution seeking to report Iran after
the Islamic Republic threatened to curb UN inspections of its atomic sites if
sent to the UN Security Council.
An EU diplomat said later a deal with the Non-Aligned
Movement nations looked unlikely but the resolution would be tabled anyway for a
vote when the Vienna-board reconvened on Saturday.
Meanwhile, another controversy holding up action in
Vienna is a U.S.-Egyptian dispute over linking fears about Tehran's atomic
program to a Middle East nuclear-free zone.
The United States and Egypt tangled over the issue of
indirectly linking Arab demands that Israel, which allegedly has nuclear
weapons, give up such arms with demands on Iran to dispel suspicions about its
atomic ambitions.
The United States did not want to link Israel to
nuclear concerns in the Middle East, while Egypt was seeking to make such a
linkage, said a senior EU official, adding the EU was trying to mediate between
the two.
Iran has expressed strong opposition to the referral.
And it warned on Friday that reporting Iran's nuclear issue to the UN Security
Council would mean the killing of Russia's proposal on uranium enrichment.
Moscow has proposed to resolve the row by having Iran
enrich uranium in Russia so as to prevent Tehran mastering the key technology.
On Thursday, the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, A.A.
Soltanieh, also said his country will suspend all voluntary cooperation with the
IAEA if its nuclear issue is reported to the UN Security Council.
"If however a historical mistake is made by some
member of the Board of Governors in sending the Iran's nuclear issue to the
United Nations Security Council, ...... the Government of the Islamic Republic
of Iran has to implement the law passed almost by consensus, to the effect that
it has to suspend all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA," Soltanieh said.
Speaking to the extraordinary meeting of the IAEA
Board of Governors, which opened here Thursday morning, the ambassador asked the
meeting not to adopt the draft resolution submitted by the EU, which demands
that it report the Iran issue to the UN top decision-making body.
The ambassador said the development of nuclear
weapons is not Iran's intention and it will continue its full cooperation with
the IAEA.
However, he said Iran still has the "inalienable
right" to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including "nuclear fuel cycle and
research and development." Enditem | 
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