The world's key powers have agreed that the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), should report Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program at a meeting on Thursday. In talks in London on Monday night, western foreign ministers managed to get Russia and China on board for tougher diplomatic action against Iran.

The ministers from the five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- agreed on a compromise under which the IAEA meeting on February 2 should report its demands on Iran to the UN, but that the Security Council should wait until March before deciding whether to become actively involved.

"This is the most powerful message we could have hoped for," a senior US official told the Reuters news agency after the talks.

In an angry response, Iran said reporting it to the Security Council would kill diplomatic efforts to resolve the row.
"We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy," Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its chief nuclear negotiator, told Iranian state television.

Britain, France and Germany have spent over two years trying to reach a diplomatic solution but their efforts were dealt a blow this month when Iran decided to resume atomic research and development at its uranium enrichment complex in Natanz, which could be used to make bomb-grade material. Iran denies it is trying to build nuclear bombs and says its nuclear program is only for generating electricity.

China and Russia, which both have close energy ties to Iran, have argued against sanctions and insisted instead on the need for further negotiations. Russia has business interests in Iran, where it is helping to build Iran's first atomic reactor and China relies on oil from Iran, the world's fourth-biggest exporter of crude.

Iran remains defiant

Iran said on Tuesday that moves to send its case to the Security Council were not legally justified and that it would not bow to demands it halt atomic research. "There is no legal basis to refer Iran's case to the Security Council and the Europeans will face difficulties doing so," Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said in an interview with the semi-official ISNA students news agency.

But Javad Vaedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran had no intention of backing down. "Research and development is the Iranian nation's legitimate right and is irreversible," he told state television.

International concern over Iran's nuclear program has been fuelled by inflammatory comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said in recent months that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and doubted that six million Jews had been killed by the Nazis during World War Two.

Israel sees Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its existence and has even hinted that it could use military force to prevent Tehran from getting a bomb.

Some ordinary Iranians appear reluctant to become internationally isolated, but don't see why they should be prevented from nuclear research. "When Pakistan and India can have nuclear energy why shouldn't we?" Adel Arjomanzade, 41, a shop owner, told the BBC. "Who knows if Israel is using its atomic energy peacefully? At least Iran has allowed inspectors to come and see our plants.
We are using nuclear energy peacefully... America has already imposed sanctions on Iran and nothing happened and we didn't die. Let them do it again."