UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday on Iran to comply with the Security Council's demand that it stop uranium enrichent, which has fuelled fears that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons. "I am deeply concerned again that the Iranians did not meet the deadline set by the Security Council," Ban told a press conference in Vienna after meeting Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik.
The Security Council had, in a resolution adopted December 23, imposed limited sanctions on Iran to get it to freeze enrichment, which makes fuel for civilian reactors but can also produce atom bomb material.
The Council then gave the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 60 days to report whether Iran had complied with the enrichment suspension demand.
The Vienna-based IAEA's report is due Thursday and is expected to document Iran's defiance of the Security Council, thus opening Tehran to wider UN sanctions.
"The Iranian government should fully comply with the Security Council as soon as possible and engage in continued negotations with the international community so that we will be able to address and peacefully resolve this issue," Ban said.
He said he hoped that the agreement that has been reached on resolving international worries about North Korea's nuclear program would "also give some good message to the Iranian authorities that it is always better to resolve all issues through dialogue."
