Sarkozy warns world powers will mobilize against Iran if nuclear talks fail

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Iran on Wednesday that failure to reach a credible agreement over its nuclear program would force world powers to mobilize to protect threatened states in the region.

In an annual address to France's ambassadors, Sarkozy laid out his foreign policy objectives as the country prepares to take over the chair next year of the Group of 20 powers and the narrower club of rich countries known as the G8.

	French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on August 25, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

"If a credible agreement cannot be reached, Iran's isolation would only worsen," Sarkozy said. "And in the face of worsening threat, we would have to organize ourselves to protect and defend states that feel threatened."

Many of Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors are concerned about the Shi'ite state's increasing clout in the region and the prospect that it might acquire nuclear weapons.

"Everybody knows that there are serious consequences to a policy that would allow Iran to follow its nuclear path," Sarkozy said. "It would see a general proliferation in the region or even military conflict."

Iran has said it is prepared to return to talks with six world powers but the exact nature of such negotiations has yet to be defined. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Iran would not talk to the United States unless sanctions and
military threats were lifted.

Tehran began loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in the Gulf city of Bushehr on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and its rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.

Sarkozy said he welcomed the new power plant to be operated by the Russians as long as it adhered to international law.

Tehran is already under four rounds of UN sanctions because of fears that its uranium enrichment program, which is separate from Bushehr, is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its enrichment work is for peaceful energy only.

"I hope that we can find a good agreement in the coming months ... that Iran respects the law and that the concerns of the international community are lifted," Sarkozy said.

Iran intensifies search for uranium

Iran said Wednesday that the search for new uranium deposits is the country's top priority now that it has started up its first nuclear power plant.

With Russian help, Iran began loading uranium fuel into its first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr on Saturday after years of delays.

The head of Iran's atomic energy agency did not explain why Iran was intensifying the exploration for uranium at home. Tehran has in the past denied its uranium stockpile was running low, as some international nuclear experts have concluded.

UN Security Council sanctions bar countries from selling uranium to Iran in response to its refusal to stop uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for power plants or material for bombs.

"The most important priority, after the Bushehr nuclear power plant, is the exploration and discovery of uranium throughout the country," the official IRNA news agency quoted nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.

The United States and other nations have tried to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium out of concern Tehran is seeking a pathway to weapons production under the cover of its civil nuclear power program. Iran denies such an aim and says it only wants to enrich uranium to fuel a future network of power plants.

Salehi, who is also Iran's vice president, said only one-third of the country has been explored for uranium deposits. He said the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will carry out exploration work anywhere it detects a uranium vein.

"With the assistance of President [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and the allocation of a budget, we hope to survey the whole country as far as uranium exploration is concerned," Salehi was quoted by IRNA as saying. He didn't elaborate but said the study and exploration activities throughout Iran may take eight years.

"Anywhere there is a vein of uranium, we will enter into exploration work," the Iranian government website quoted Salehi as saying.

International experts have said Iran's stockpile of uranium oxide - used to make the gas that is spun through centrifuges in the enrichment process - appears to be rapidly diminishing.

In December, a confidential intelligence report drawn up by a member of the UN's nuclear watchdog agency said Iran was trying to secretly import 1,350 tons of uranium oxide from Kazakhstan for $450 million.

Iran at the time called the report a fabrication and completely baseless.

Tehran still has hundreds of tons of the uranium hexafluoride gas used in the enrichment process.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran's rapidly expanding enrichment program has been built on 600 tons of uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s as part of plans by the U.S.-backed shah to build a civil nuclear power program.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said last year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up close to three-quarters of its South African supply.

Iran's own principal source of uranium is the Saghand mine in the center of the country, which has the capacity to produce 132,000 tons (120,000 metric tons) of ore per year. Located about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Tehran, the mine consists of an open pit with minimal reserves and a deep mine. It has a total estimated uranium ore reserve of 1.73 million tons (1.58 million metric tons).

It also has smaller uranium deposits near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas where a mill is reportedly converting raw uranium into uranium ore concentrate known as yellowcake.

Iran announced discoveries of new uranium deposits in 2006 at three sites in the central Khoshoomi, Charchooleh and Narigan areas.