The UN nuclear watchdog called on Iran today to immediately halt activities related to uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make atomic weapons.
The resolution called on Iran to suspend all "enrichment-related activities" and said the agency's governing board regretted Iran's suspension of enrichment as promised last year had fallen far short of what had been expected.
France, Britain and Germany formally submitted a toughly worded draft resolution to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) yesterday which called on Tehran to immediately freeze its uranium enrichment programme.
The US fully endorsed the draft resolution which was passed unanimously by the IAEA board of governors.
"The resolution was passed by consensus," IAEA spokeswoman Ms Melissa Fleming told reporters outside the closed-door meeting of the agency's board. Enrichment is the most controversial part of Iran's programme since it can produce nuclear material for weapons.
Iran denies any plan to develop nuclear arms and insists its programme is intended only to produce electricity. It says its enrichment facilities would be used only to make low-enriched fuel for power plants, not highly-enriched fuel for bombs.
A Western diplomat close to the negotiations said IAEA chief Mr Mohamed ElBaradei had broken deadlock in the talks by assuring the non-aligned states and Brazil that the Iran enrichment freeze would set no precedent for other states.
Brazil and South Africa also have enrichment programmes and feared that one day they too could be told to freeze their commercial enrichment activities, diplomats said.
The resolution did not call for the board to report Tehran to the UN Security Council as Washington had hoped. Nor did it include a "trigger" clause that would require the board to report Iran to the Council, which can impose economic sanctions, when it meets again in November.