In Brussels, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer warned Iran that it faced “serious” consequences if it does not fulfill a pledge to stop uranium enrichment, a process that produces fuel for civilian reactors but also the explosive core for atomic bombs.

His French counterpart, Michel Barnier, confirmed that Britain, France, and Germany – who have spearheaded Europe’s diplomatic offensive over Iran – have circulated a draft resolution at the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which opened a meeting in Vienna on Monday.

He said the draft would be submitted to the IAEA board of governors, which would decide on eventual action, with the United States pushing for a harder line against Iran.

Barnier did not rule out the possibility that the IAEA would bring Iran before the UN Security Council if Tehran refused to cooperate, as the United States has been urging, but expressed hope that a political solution was possible.

“Our three countries are today proposing a draft resolution in Vienna which calls on the IAEA director-general to make an objective and impartial assessment of Iran’s nuclear program by November to clarify matters,” he said.

“At that time we will have various choices before us: either our concerns remain and we will have the option of sending the case to the UN Security Council. Or – and it is what we hope, what I hope – Iran will show it can be trusted and the affair can be defused in Vienna,” he said.

The United States says Iran is secretly developing nuclear arms, in defiance of the international community, and should be brought before the UN Security Council to face sanctions. Diplomats have called for a “trigger mechanism” in the resolution that would make such an outcome automatic if Iran failed to cooperate.

In Vienna, a senior Iranian official told AFP that Iran was ready to resume enriching uranium within a few months, although no decision had been reached in Tehran – the clearest sign yet that Iran will end its year-long suspension of enrichment activities.

“Iran should be able to start enrichment activities within a few months but high-level decision-makers still have not yet decided about the timing,” said Hossein Mousavian, head of the Islamic republic’s delegation to the IAEA meeting.

Mousavian said Iran has reached self-sufficiency in centrifuge technology, the key to enriching uranium.

Centrifuges are used to spin a uranium gas in order to refine highly enriched uranium.

“Yes, we are self-sufficient in centrifuges,” Mousavian said.

He also said that Iran’s year-long suspension of uranium enrichment, coupled with its signing of an additional protocol giving IAEA inspectors “full access” to Iranian facilities was “enough for confidence-building.”

Referring to the suspension, he said, “This cannot continue for a very long time,” particularly since Iran is allowed to enrich uranium under the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mousavian said Iran was disappointed that Britain, France, and Germany had not lived up to the terms of an agreement reached in October 2003. Under the agreement, Iran was to suspend enrichment and increase cooperation with the IAEA, in exchange for Europe securing an end to the IAEA’s investigation of Iran by June 2004 and providing for the transfer of peaceful nuclear technology.

But Mousavian said Iran was now negotiating with the European Union on “a wide range of issues related to security, peace, and stability in the whole region of the Persian Gulf, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Middle East,” and that progress in these talks “would have an effect on the timing of starting enrichment.”

Iran seeks the elimination of weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East, as well as trade and technology transfers.

BRUSSELS – Around 5,000 supporters of Iran’s main armed opposition group, the People’s Mujahideen, demonstrated in Brussels in front of the building where EU foreign ministers were meeting on Monday. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, which called the rally, claimed that 25,000 people took part. The protestors, carrying Iranian flags and portraits of their leaders, Massud and Maryam Rajavi, were demanding the removal of the Iraq-based People’s Mujahideen from the EU’s blacklist of terrorist organizations. British foreign secretary Jack Straw said he saw “no reason” to remove the group from the list.AFP