WASHINGTON, Feb 10, (Agencies): US President Barack Obama pushed Tuesday for a “significant regime of sanctions” against Iran unless it accepts international proposals aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions. Stepping up the heat on Iran’s leaders at an impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room, Obama said the United States and five other world powers were “moving along fairly quickly” to tighten the screws on Tehran. He indicated that his administration had made headway in persuading Russia to overcome its traditional resistance to imposing new sanctions on Iran, even if he was uncertain about whether China would join the other powers.

China now appears to be the sole holdout on sanctions among the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council — the other four are the United States, Russia, Britain and France.
Germany is the sixth power involved in the negotiations, but is not a Security Council permanent member.
Iran announced on Tuesday it has begun work to enrich uranium to 20 percent, which it says is for a medical research reactor in Tehran.
The move suggested Iran was spurning a four-month-old proposal by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ship most of its stocks of 3.5-percent enriched uranium abroad to be further upgraded to fuel the reactor.
Experts say that once Iran enriches uranium to 20 percent, it can proceed to the 93 percent needed to produce nuclear weapons since the technology is the same. Iran maintains the enrichment is purely for civilian energy purposes.
“Despite the posturing that the nuclear power is only for civilian use... they in fact continue to pursue a course that would lead to weaponization, and that is not acceptable to the international community,” Obama said.

After trying to engage Iranian leaders and persuade them to accept the IAEA deal to defuse the crisis, Obama said the world must be prepared to pressure Iran to change course, even if the “door is still open” to negotiations.
The world community “has bent over backwards” to accommodate Iran and yet is still ready to accept the Islamic Republic as a member of “good standing,” he said.
“What we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole,” Obama said.
In Moscow, the powerful head of Russia’s national security council, Nikolai Patrushev, said Tehran’s announcement that it had started work to produce 20 percent enriched uranium cast doubt on its claims not to be pursuing weapons.
Patrushev indicated the Kremlin’s patience in trying to seek dialogue with Tehran was wearing thin.
“Political and diplomatic methods are important for regulating, but everything has its limit,” Patrushev was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies.
Keeping up the pressure on Iran, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States would propose to the IAEA an alternative to allow Tehran to obtain the medical isotopes it says it needs for cancer patients.

Deal
Iran believes a nuclear fuel exchange with the West is still possible, state television said on Wednesday, a day after the Islamic Republic’s escalation of uranium enrichment drew a US warning of more sanctions soon.
“The deal is still on the table,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said on English-language Press TV.
But he reiterated Iran’s demand for a simultaneous fuel swap on its soil — a likely non-starter for Western powers who want Tehran to send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad before it gets higher-grade fuel for a medical research reactor in return.
Salehi said Iran’s uranium could be sealed and under the “custody” of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the country, until it receives reactor fuel.
Iran decided to step up enrichment after a failure to agree terms for the exchange, under which it would have sent the bulk of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for 20-percent-pure fuel rods for a Tehran reactor producing medical isotopes.

The reactor is due to run out of such fuel later this year.
For world powers and the UN nuclear watchdog, the swap’s attraction lies in preventing Iran from retaining enough of the material for a nuclear weapon, if it were refined to 90 percent.
Iran has until now limited its enrichment to 3.5 percent, but refining to low levels is the most technically challenging and time consuming stage of the process. Scaling the enrichment ladder above 20 percent can be done in mere months.
The US Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions against four subsidiaries and the commander of the construction arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The action, which extends earlier sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards and its Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, bans US transactions with the newly designated firms and aims to freeze any assets they may have under US jurisdiction.
The Treasury said Khatam al-Anbiya is involved in the construction of streets, highways, tunnels, pipelines and water projects and its profits help support Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs as well as terrorist activities.

The latest Treasury action represents an incremental step that builds on previous efforts to target specific firms that support Iran’s nuclear development and missile technology.
A senior US envoy accused Tehran’s leadership Wednesday of hypocrisy for opting to pursue “ever more dangerous nuclear technology” instead of accepting an international plan meant to assure the supply of medical isotopes to Iranian cancer patients.
The sharp criticism from Glyn Davies, the chief US delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, came a day after Iran began enriching its uranium to a higher level, increasing international concerns about its nuclear aims.
“Why is Tehran gambling with the health and lives of 850,000 Iranian cancer patients in pursuit of ever more dangerous nuclear technology?” asked Davies.
“This move is callous and chilling,” he told The Associated Press.
David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said higher enrichment means that Iran is getting a step closer to the ability to make nuclear weapons.

Weapons
China has told Britain it is determined to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Tuesday.
Russia sent its strongest signal yet on Tuesday that it could back a fourth set of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. But China — one of the E3+3 powers dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue — has argued that discussions about sanctions might make it harder to find a diplomatic solution.
Iran’s announcement that it would further expand its nuclear programme has increased pressure from the United States and other Western powers for tougher sanctions.
Miliband said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had assured him of China’s determination to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons when they talked on the sidelines of a London conference on Afghanistan on Jan 28.
“He insisted to me that the Chinese were absolutely committed to the goal that unites the E3+3 as well as the wider UN and that is to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear weapons state,” he told reporters.
“It’s very, very important that we therefore maintain maximum unity in developing the tactics to deliver on that goal,” he said.

Arrested
Iran’s police chief said several people were arrested while making preparations for anti-government protests on Thursday, when the nation marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam said that some people “intended to have deviant slogans” on Thursday when state-sponsored marches take place across Iran to mark the anniversary of the revolution which toppled the shah in 1979.
“There is good intelligence control on their behaviour... and some people who were preparing equipment in this regard (making banners and posters) have been arrested,” Moghaddam told Fars news agency on Wednesday, without giving numbers or details of what preparations the detainees were making.

He also issued a warning that authorities will crack down on anyone staging demonstrations against the government or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the main target of protests since his disputed June re-election.
“If anyone wants to disrupt this glorious ceremony, they will be confronted by people and we too are fully prepared,” the police chief warned.
Opposition supporters have since June taken every opportunity to stage protests against Ahmadinejad, whose re-election they say was massively rigged.
Meanwhile, an Iranian appeal court has reduced to five years the jail sentence for an Iranian-American scholar detained after last year’s disputed election and accused of espionage, an Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday.
In October, official media said Kian Tajbakhsh was sentenced to more than 12 years in jail.
“The appeal court sentenced my client ... to five years in jail,” said lawyer Houshang Azhari, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

“It was a very good reduction ... about two-thirds of the initial sentence,” he said.
Last year, the US State Department said it had been told that Tajbakhsh was jailed for 15 years and it urged Tehran to immediately release him, saying the United States was deeply concerned about the long jail term.
Tajbakhsh was among thousands of people detained after the presidential poll in June last year, which plunged the Islamic Republic into turmoil. He was accused of espionage and acting against national security.
The moderate opposition says the vote was rigged to secure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election. Officials deny the accusations.
During an Iranian government meeting late last month, a top adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought a proposal to expand the political voice of a group more known for its street muscle: the civilian militia corps called the Basij.

The motion passed easily, according to pro-government Web sites.
And with it, Iranian authorities took another step in restructuring the state to reward the forces that help keep them in power — handing wider decision-making roles to the formidable Revolutionary Guard and its vast paramilitary network that have led the crackdowns against opposition protesters.
The Revolutionary Guard has always been a centerpiece of Iran’s Islamic establishment. But the latest door opened to its militia wing suggests a deepening policy role by Iran’s most hard-line groups as opposition forces grow bolder in their demands and the West considers tighter sanctions over its nuclear impasse with Tehran.
The Basij will again be out in force Thursday for expected protest marches to coincide with events marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Their attempts to crush the anti-government movement have been well documented since Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election last June, including the trademark Basiji motorcycle charges in protest crowds.