Agence France Presse – UN chief Kofi Annan on Thursday hailed the "spirit of consensus" which led the Security Council to approve a statement urging Iran to abandon all uranium enrichment activities.
"The secretary general welcomes the spirit of consensus that was demonstrated yesterday by the members of the Security Council in the presidential statement on non-proliferation," said a statement released by Annan’s office.
The council’s 15 members on Wednesday unanimously approved a non-binding statement giving Iran 30 days to abandon uranium enrichment activities, which could be used to produce fuel for nuclear bombs.
The statement said Annan "hopes that Iran will heed the international community’s concerns, as reflected in the council statement, regarding Iran’s nuclear program and that it will cooperate fully with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and successive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolutions."
But the Islamic republic remained defiant.
"Iran’s decision on enrichment, particularly research and development, is irreversible," said Aliasghar Soltanieh, Tehran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based IAEA.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking in Geneva, described the UN declaration as an "angry precedent" and a "bad move".
The UN statement does not say what consequences might follow if Tehran does not halt uranium enrichment, and Russia and China insisted that economic sanctions or military action did not belong on the table.
Washington and its European allies believe that Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons program, which they argue would destabilize the entire region.
