MONTY PYTHON’S FIRST FINAL POSITIVE FIRST STEP

US welcomes Iran nuclear warning (The Australian, August 12th, 2005)

The United States welcomed as a "positive first step" an international warning to Iran to halt sensitive nuclear activities but vowed to seek UN sanctions if Tehran did not comply.

President George W. Bush gave qualified approval to a resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency that put off action against Iran pending a new report on its nuclear program due on September 3.

The UN nuclear watchdog "issued a report that expressed serious concerns about Iranian decisions. And that's a positive first step," Bush said as he met with senior foreign policy aides at his Texas holiday ranch.[...]

A senior State Department official said he expected the Vienna-based IAEA to hold a new meeting on September 6, three days after its director Mohamed ElBaradei was due to issue a new report on Iran's nuclear activities.

The official said that unless Iran complied with calls for a halt to its fuel-cycle work, the EU-3 and the United States would seek a referral to the UN Security Council.

But asked whether they had already lined up consensus within the IAEA for such a contingency, the official replied, "I would not go that far."

Non-aligned members of the IAEA had opposed a tough line with Iran even after it resumed uranium conversion activities that had been suspended under an agreement struck in November with the EU.

Gotta wonder who those non-aligned members aren’t aligned with.