June 12 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations nuclear agency may reiterate calls for Iran to voluntarily suspend its atomic program and ask the country to improve cooperation with inspectors, according to a report that shows the Islamic Republic is stepping up efforts to enrich uranium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors is meeting in Vienna today. Iran began enriching a new batch of uranium last week and the agency needs better cooperation with Iranian authorities to be assured the program isn't aimed at developing a bomb, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei will tell the board in a three-page report seen by Bloomberg News.
Iran is continuing with the nuclear program, which it says is needed for power production, in defiance of international pressure and a non-binding UN resolution. The nation has yet to react to a European Union plan, delivered June 6 and backed by the U.S., which offers incentives to Iran to end its atomic work.
The U.S. and other board members want Iran to ``refrain from further uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, including research and development and to take advantage of the enormous diplomatic opportunity that lays in front,'' The U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said today at a briefing in Vienna.
Saudi Backing
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters in Tehran today that his country believes Iran has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology, the state-run Kuwait News Agency reported.
Iran today said the nuclear program wasn't negotiable, Agence France-Presse reported from Tehran.
The IAEA board sent the Iranian case to the UN Security Council on Feb. 4, after the Islamic Republic refused to heed calls for the suspension of the enrichment program, which the U.S. alleges is a cover for making nuclear weapons.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said yesterday that the European-led proposal aimed at stopping the nation from enriching the nuclear fuel showed a ``positive inclination'' toward Iran because it contained no mention of ``punishment'' and didn't have a deadline attached to it.
``What was given is a program with a positive tendency toward Iran and there is no mention of punishments,'' the state- run Iranian Students News Agency quoted Larijani as saying in Cairo yesterday. ``It is said that a deadline has been set for Iran, which is not correct.''
Iran is currently reviewing the incentive package offered by the EU and backed by the U.S., Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in Tehran yesterday. The spokesman reiterated Iran will not ``compromise'' or ``negotiate'' its rights to access peaceful energy and added some points of the proposal were ``ambiguous'' and others ``not necessary.''
The incentive plan was agreed on June 1 by diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K. and France -- as well as by Germany. Each of the permanent members has a veto over the council's resolutions.
