The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog says he has been invited to North Korea for talks on its nuclear programme. Mohamed ElBaradei said he hoped to discuss the suspension of North Korea’s nuclear activity and the eventual dismantling of its relevant facilities.

He also said he hoped North Korea would decide to rejoin the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

North Korea agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament at six-party talks earlier this month.

Mr Ahmadinejad said the Iranian people would defend their rights

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country will defend its nuclear programme to the bitter end. His comments came a day after the UN nuclear body confirmed Iran had ignored a deadline to stop uranium enrichment.

Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran could not show weakness “in front of the enemy”, saying previous compromises had led to increased demands from the West.

Permanent UN Security Council members and Germany will meet on Monday to discuss further sanctions against Iran.

The UN Security Council had given Iran until 21 February to halt uranium enrichment.

But the UN’s nuclear agency, the IAEA, concluded in a report on Thursday that Iran was expanding rather than halting its enrichment programme, defying a UN resolution of December 2006.

‘Vigilant people’

Iran says the UN call for it to stop uranium enrichment is unacceptable, as it has no legal basis.

Iran considers that a suspension of uranium would be contrary to its rights, to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to international rules Mohammad Saeedi Iranian nuclear agency deputy head Your say: How to deal with Iran Quick guide: Iran nuclear row Tension over Iran’s plans

“The Iranian people are vigilant and will defend all their rights to the end,” Iranian news agency Isna quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying, at a rally in northern Iran on Friday.

“If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance they will retreat.”

In a Friday prayers sermon broadcast on state radio, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also said threats of further sanctions would not work.

“They will not get a result this way, it will just make problems for themselves, the world and especially our region,” he said.

He said Iran was willing to give Western powers “the necessary guarantees” if they returned to the negotiating table.

‘Peaceful purposes’

Representatives of the five permanent Security Council members - the US, UK, France, Russia and China - plus Germany will meet in London for talks on drafting a second resolution sanctioning Iran on Monday.

POSSIBLE NEXT STEPS New UN resolution on tougher economic sanctions, tabled by US or European allies US pressure on Europeans to step up bilateral sanctions New initiative to get Iran back to talks Q&A: Iran and the nuclear issue

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a press conference with French President Jacques Chirac on Friday, said the door “remains open” for negotiations with Tehran.

But, she said, the report made clear Iran was not fulfilling its obligations and therefore it was right that the path led back to the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has backed a diplomatic resolution to the dispute, China’s state news agency Xinhua reports.

Mr Li telephoned his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki to express Beijing’s desire “to peacefully resolve” the nuclear issue, Xinhua says.

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who will take part in the talks, said Iran was “effectively thumbing its nose at the international community”.

Tehran denies Western claims it is secretly trying to build nuclear arms, saying its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful, energy-producing purposes.

While enriched uranium is used as fuel for nuclear reactors, highly enriched uranium can also be used to make nuclear bombs.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the UN Security Council will make a fresh attempt to persuade Iran to discuss its nuclear programme. Speaking in Berlin, Ms Rice said the US, Russia, Germany and the EU agreed to use the UN and other means to get Iran back to the negotiating table.

Iran’s foreign minister said there was still time for a negotiated solution.

It comes as the UN’s nuclear watchdog is due to report on whether Iran has halted uranium enrichment activities.

Iran denies Western claims it is secretly trying to build nuclear arms.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful, energy-producing purposes.

‘Deeply concerned’

A 60-day deadline set by the UN for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities expired on Wednesday.

We think that talks are the best way to get out of the impasse while each party is stressing a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the issue Manouchehr Mottaki Iranian foreign minister

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, is expected to report in Vienna on Thursday that Iran has failed to comply with the UN’s demands, and expanded rather than halted its nuclear fuel programme.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Iran to co-operate.

“I am deeply concerned again that the Iranians did not meet the deadline set by the Security Council,” he said ahead of the announcement.

“The Iranian government should fully comply with the Security Council as soon as possible and engage in continued negotiations with the international community so that we will be able to address and peacefully resolve this issue.”

Iran could face fresh sanctions in addition to measures targeting its nuclear and missiles programmes imposed by the UN in December.

‘No military action’

But Ms Rice said efforts would continue to be made to encourage Iran to stop its nuclear work and resume talks.

“We reconfirmed that we will use our available channels and the Security Council to try and achieve that goal,” she said.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said there were no plans for military action against Iran, but that he could not predict every set of circumstances.

“There is, as far as I know, no planning going on to make an attack on Iran and people are pursuing a diplomatic and political solution,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran also wanted talks.

“We were against taking Iran’s dossier to the Security Council from the very beginning because it was political and illegal. We are still against discussing the issue in the Security Council,” he said.

“We support negotiations for solving the problem and we think that talks are the best way to get out of the impasse while each party is stressing a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the issue.”

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Friday that

Iran would defend its nuclear program, describing his country as a potential role model for others trying to develop advanced technology.

State television reported the hard-liner’s speech to a crowd in a northern Iranian town, delivered a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported that Iran had not heeded the world body’s demand to roll back its nuclear program.

“The Iranian nation has resisted all bullies and corrupt powers and it will fully defend its all rights,” the broadcast quoted Ahmadinejad as telling people in Fuman. It did not say whether the president elaborated.

Ahmadinejad declared that if his country reaches the “peaks of technology and science, then it will be a role model” for other countries, state television quoted him as saying, apparently referring to nuclear power.

The television did not report whether Ahmadinejad mentioned the report on Iran given Thursday by the

International Atomic Energy Agency to the

U.N. Security Council.

The IAEA told the council that Iran has ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze uranium enrichment and has instead expanded its program by setting up nearly 1,000 centrifuges.

The report said Tehran also has continued to build a heavy water reactor and related facilities, and has ignored a Security Council call to cooperate with the IAEA in its efforts to learn about suspicious nuclear activities.

Senior diplomats from the five permanent Security Council nations and Germany will meet on Monday in London to start work on a new resolution to try to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, which can lead to the production of nuclear weapons.

The council issued three demands to Iran when it adopted its resolution Dec. 23 — freeze enrichment, stop building heavy water facilities and fully cooperate with the IAEA.

It introduced limited economic sanctions and gave Iran 60 days to comply — a deadline that expired Wednesday.

The United States and its Western allies have insisted Iran must suspend enrichment before it will enter any negotiations over its nuclear program — a condition Tehran has rejected as it pushes ahead with developing its enrichment facilities.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United States and other Western countries accuse it of using it as a cover to develop weapons.

WASHINGTON - President Bush says he isn’t looking for a fight, but the question won’t go away: Is the United States headed for war with Iran’s Islamic rulers?

Increasing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program and actions in Iraq have fueled speculation that Bush may be paving the way for military action. With U.S. forces tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one expects a ground invasion, but analysts at both ends of the spectrum put little stock in Bush’s insistence that he’s focused only on diplomacy.

“I still believe, at the end of the day, that he will bomb the Iranian [nuclear] facilities,” said Joshua Muravchik, a neoconservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Bush and his advisers describe U.S. policy as a carrot-and-stick approach that uses the threat of military action to create diplomatic leverage. The goal is to encourage internal dissent in Iran and force the government to take a more moderate approach.

MOSCOW, Feb. 21 (UPI) — Russia’s foreign minister Wednesday warned the United States not to take military action against Iran.

“The Russian foreign minister said Wednesday U.S.-led multinational foreign forces in Iraq must not conduct military operations outside the country, including against Iran,” the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

“The multinational force in Iraq should abide strictly by the UN Security Council’s mandate, which does not provide for any operations outside the country,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Lebanese magazine Al-Watan Al-Arabi in an interview.

“The escalation of the conflict and its possible spread beyond the Iraqi borders will inevitably result in catastrophic consequences and not for the Middle East alone,” Lavrov said according to the report. “I believe Washington understands this.”

Lavrov told Al-Watan Al-Arabi that a timetable needed to be drawn up for the coordinated and gradual evacuation of all foreign military forces from Iraq. He said that was essential to bring stability to the troubled Middle eastern nation.

“But at the same time we believe that U.S. Army detachments and their coalition allies should not leave Iraq tomorrow,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov also said that Iraq’s own police, army and other security forces needed to be increased in size and strength to prepare for the pull out of U.S. and other forces.

“The long-standing confrontation between the U.S. and Iran deteriorated further Jan. 11 when American servicemen burst into Iran’s mission in Erbil (Kurdistan) and detained five officials. American troops disarmed guards and confiscated computers and documents without providing any explanation,” RIA Novosti noted.

The Russian news agency also noted that “earlier this month the United States accused Iran of backing the insurgency and unrest in Iraq, and suspects the Islamic Republic of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program.”

The tension over Iran’s nuclear programme is increasing, with the expiry on Wednesday of a Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.

At the same time, the BBC has reported that the United States has drawn up plans for an attack on Iran to cover two contingencies - the confirmed development of nuclear weapons by Iran, or backing by Iran for a major attack on US troops in Iraq.

The first contingency is full of uncertainties. Iran says it is simply exercising its right to provide fuel to make nuclear energy and that it has no intention of building a bomb.

The problem is that the same technology used to make fuel for nuclear power can then be developed to make fuel for a nuclear explosion.

So how can Iran’s intentions be judged?

The signs are that Iran will not comply with the Security Council demands

The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran halt its activities in order to allow for negotiations. Iran has been offered civilian nuclear technology for power if it gives up enrichment of fuel itself. The council has imposed sanctions designed to limit Iran’s access to nuclear technology.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that there can be no pre-conditions for talks. Indeed, he has proposed that Western governments suspend enrichment themselves before any talks.

The signs are that Iran will not comply with the Security Council demands and that therefore further sanctions will be considered. The US will press for them. Russia and China will question them.

Mutual freeze?

The UN’s nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is to report this week on Iranian compliance with the Security Council demand.

The IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei warned against ‘hype’ over Iran’s nuclear abilities

The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, is calling for a mutual freeze - by Iran on its nuclear development and by the Security Council on sanctions. No freeze is likely.

Mr ElBaradei told the Financial Times this week that Iran might be five or 10 years away from developing a nuclear bomb. He warned against “hype” over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Meanwhile, the US continues to apply pressure on Iran and is expected to move a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Gulf region soon.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney said in Newsweek magazine that American allies in the region “want us to have a major presence there” and that the carriers would send ” a strong signal” that the US would “work with friends and allies to oppose the Iranian threat”.

Iraq linkage

A new element emerging over the last couple of weeks is the linkage the US is making between Iran and events inside Iraq. It has publicised its contention that Iran is behind sophisticated technology that is being used by some Shia groups against US and British forces in Iraq.

The US claims Iran is supplying weapons to Iraq insurgents

The timing of this claim, rejected by Iran, is significant, because it ties in with the expiry of the Security Council demand on 21 February. It adds a new component to the equation.

The US can now claim a casus belli if there is a major attack on US forces in Iraq that can be linked to Iran. Such linkage of course is not easy to prove, and even the evidence that the US has produced so far has been challenged.

But the legality of any attack against Iran will be hard to establish, to say the least, without clear evidence, especially as the evidence against Iraq proved unreliable.

Danger

All this makes for an extremely delicate and dangerous period ahead.

It does not mean that a US attack on Iran is imminent. The BBC information is that the US has chosen targets in Iran and has considered two scenarios for an attack.

The targets include not only Iranian nuclear sites but Iranian missile sites and other major military infrastructure.

This would be in line with US doctrine that, in a conflict, an attack has to cover a range of military targets. This happened in the two Gulf wars and Israel adopted similar tactics in its attacks on Hezbollah last year.

But it is not an either-or situation.

Diplomacy

There is a diplomatic effort at play here as well.

Washington hopes that its pressure will trigger not necessarily a war but a debate inside Iran that will either lead to a change of policy (maybe through a change in government) or a much slower and more cautious Iranian approach.

It is also not clear that within the Bush administration these days there is total support for any attack on Iran. The influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems to be growing at the expense of Vice-President Cheney.

We have seen the US entering negotiations over North Korea, leading to an interim agreement under which the North’s claimed nuclear weapon is being left to one side.

Mr Burns has backed the idea of “additional sanctions”

Washington has said it will now push for tougher sanctions against Iran over its continuing nuclear activities. The United Nations Security Council gave Tehran 60 days to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

But the deadline has expired and a UN report is soon expected to confirm that Iran is pressing ahead with developing its own nuclear fuel cycle.

US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns accused Iran of “brazenly pursuing” its nuclear ambitions.

Mr Burns said that over the next few weeks there would be efforts within the UN Security Council to establish “additional sanctions” on the Iranian Government.

Internal opposition

On Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would try to achieve nuclear capability as soon as possible, according to reports by Iran’s Isna news agency.

However, for the first time a political party in Iran has also called on Mr Ahmadinejad to accept the UN’s demands.

Iran denies Western claims that it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying its programme is for purely peaceful ends.

A UN resolution, adopted on 23 December 2006, imposed sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes and opened the way for further measures if it failed to halt uranium enrichment within two months.

Following the deadline’s expiry on Wednesday, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to report that Iran has defied the 60-day ultimatum.

Security dangers

Iran resumed uranium enrichment last year. The process can produce fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.

Speaking in the northern town of Siahkal, Mr Ahmadinejad said: “Obtaining this technology is very important for our country’s development and honour. It is worth it to stop other activities for 10 years and focus only on the nuclear issue.”

But one small radical reformist political party, the Islamic Revolutionary Mujahadin Organisation, has complained that Iran’s drive to produce nuclear energy has endangered national security, the national interest and the destiny of the Iranian people.

The BBC’s Frances Harrison says this is the first time there has been open criticism of Mr Ahmedinejad’s nuclear policy. Allies of the president in parliament were quick to say it came from lackeys of the United States who did not even know the basics of politics, our correspondent adds.

Iran says its nuclear programme is only for producing energy

Indian officials say exports to Iran that could be used in the country’s nuclear programme have been banned. Trade officials said the ban would prevent anything that could be used to enrich uranium from being exported directly or indirectly to Iran.

The restrictions comply with a decision taken last year by the United Nations Security Council.

The Indian government’s Communist allies attacked it for voting against Iran at the UN nuclear agency, IAEA.

The Indian government’s announcement was made just hours before the planned publication of a UN nuclear agency report which is expected to say Tehran has not complied with the Security Council’s demands - opening the way for tougher international sanctions.

India has maintained that it’s support for a resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council did not detract from its close relations.

Last month, Iran, Pakistan and India agreed on a pricing formula for the delivery of Iranian gas via a $7bn pipeline.

Talks on the 2,600km-long pipeline began in 1994, but have been plagued by disagreements.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian

In the coming days, Iran is expected to make what is being billed as a major announcement on its nuclear programme to coincide with the anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

But just how close is Iran to mastering nuclear technology?

Both Iran and some of its critics may have their own reasons for exaggerating the progress - but the real truth is hard to establish.

In its announcement, Iran may claim to have begun large-scale industrial enrichment of uranium.

But any statement is likely to be as much about political positioning as real technical progress, according to nuclear analysts.

The announcement may focus on work Iran has conducted in installing two cascades of more than 300 centrifuges in an underground industrial size plant at Natanz with the aim of moving towards a total of 3,000 machines.

With US troops so close to Iran’s borders, a small event could easily ignite a wider escalation and even trigger an ‘accidental’ war

The centrifuges are used to enrich uranium. This is in addition to two existing cascades in a pilot plant above ground.

But Iran’s plan to initially run 3,000 centrifuges before moving towards an ultimate goal of 54,000 has run into obstacles and delays and is well behind target. Even the cascades in the pilot plant have seen problems.

However, once Iran has mastered the technology of enrichment and the ability to enrich gas at high speeds in a centrifuge then transferring it to a larger scale presents a lesser challenge.

‘Own mistakes’

Uranium enriched to around 5% can be used as nuclear fuel, but if it is enriched to around 90% it can be used in a weapon.

Diplomats have been shown the Isfahan nuclear plant recently

Over the years, some of the problems with the programme seem to be due to Iran’s own mistakes.

For instance, one of the top figures in the programme has talked of how in the early days, those assembling the centrifuges did not wear cloth gloves.

As a result, tiny beads of sweat would be transferred to the rotor which spins inside the centrifuge.

This almost imperceptibly increased the weight of the rotor which then unbalanced the centrifuge when it started to spin, causing it to “explode”.

Iran also was thought to have had problems with the purity of the uranium hexafluoride which is fed into the centrifuges, although its scientists now say this has been solved.

‘Mossad’s hand’

But the problems may also be due to more shady activity by others.

Over a number of years, both US and Israeli intelligence are believed to have covertly passed flawed parts and equipment to Iran to cause technical difficulties and slow the Iranian programme down.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned the US against attacks on Iran

In one event last April, according to Iranian press reports, the explosion of another set of centrifuges was attributed to problems with the power supply.

The supply needs to be kept precise and constant to ensure the centrifuges spin at the correct speed but Iranian scientists said that on this occasion the power supply might have been “manipulated” which may imply they were sabotaged.

It is possible that some of the electrical parts for Iran may have come through the Turkish end of the network run by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan which also supplied electrical components to the Libyan nuclear programme.

By the end of the network’s activity in early 2004, it had been penetrated by British and American intelligence with some of the suppliers turned as agents.

Recent reports have also questioned whether the death in January of a 45-year-old Iranian scientist, Ardeshire Hosseinpour, might have been the result of an operation by Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad.

Hosseinpour had been involved in the enrichment programme, but Iranian reports have denied that his death was due to anything other than natural causes.

Mossad is widely believed to have been behind a campaign of killings and intimidation targeted at the Iraqi nuclear programme and some of its suppliers in Europe in the early 1980s, but this has never been definitively proven.

‘Many unknowns’

Arguably it is human expertise in the form of trained scientists rather than equipment which is the most important element of a nuclear programme.

Whether or not there has been extensive covert activity directed at Iran (and by definition it is hard to discern the truth), the variety of technical problems mean that its hard to know if Iran is actually far away from mastering nuclear technology or relatively close to it and thereby able to make the relatively short journey from “peaceful” civilian technology towards manufacturing nuclear material for a bomb.

The problem is that there remain many “unknowns” when it comes to the Iranian programme.

One of the most important is exactly how much help Tehran received from the Khan network.

The network first sold centrifuge designs to Iran in 1987 and provided on-off help for more than a decade after, including parts and designs for more advanced machines.

But international investigators remain unsure that they have an understanding on the full extent of the assistance, not least because no-one outside Pakistan has been able to question Khan directly whilst he remains under a form of house-arrest in Islamabad.

The biggest question surrounds the more advanced P2 centrifuge design that Khan passed to the Iranians.

Iran initially said it had conducted little work on the design but last year Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was working on the machine (which would be far more efficient than the model in Natanz).

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been provided any information on such work.

No rush?

If Iran was able to run a parallel, second enrichment program which it had managed to keep secret, then many of the estimates of how far Iran was from mastering the technology might be way of the mark. But this remains an unknown.

The degree of uncertainty can cut the debate over action against Iran in both directions.

Some voices argue that Iran remains at least five years away from nuclear weapons capability, and US intelligence estimates have consistently pushed back when that might be - so some argue there is no rush.

Other hawkish and pessimistic voices argue that Iran could soon master the technology and the time-frame for action lies this year.

Israel is keen to emphasise that it sees the shorter time-frame as the valid one and is willing to take action.

The US has been playing down its willingness to engage in military action but is currently pushing the Europeans to squeeze Iran financially.

‘Accidental war’

But conflict between the US and Iran is still possible.

President Ahmadinejad is facing his own domestic problems with mounting criticism of not just his approach to foreign policy and the nuclear issue but also his failure to deal with economic concerns at home.

This could lead to other power centres in Iran forcing him to back down but could also encourage him to take a harder line on the nuclear programme in order to try and rally support.

At the same time, Washington has been increasing the pressure over Iran’s alleged involvement in Iraq.

With US troops so close to Iran’s borders, a small event could easily ignite a wider escalation and even trigger an “accidental” war - although conspiracy theorists might argue that there are some in both Tehran and Washington who would like to engineer just such a confrontation and blame the other side.