VIENNA (Reuters):

The European Union (EU) urged a politically charged meeting of the United Nations nuclear agency yesterday to deny Iran's request for help with a facility that could yield plutonium for atom bombs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation governing board has repeatedly asked Iran not to pursue the Arak heavy water reactor project. Tehran has vowed to complete it and applied for IAEA expertise to ensure it meets safety standards.

Although IAEA approval of such requests is usually routine, Western board members say the Arak case must be rejected given Iran's record of evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and its defiance of U.N. demands to stop enriching uranium.

"We cannot support providing technical assistance to a ... project that ... would in future produce significant quantities of plutonium and involve a significant (nuclear) proliferation risk," Finnish envoy Kirsti Helena Kauppi, speaking on behalf of the EU, told the IAEA board.

The United States, along with Canada and Australia, also opposes IAEA assistance for Iran on Arak but allowed the EU to take the lead on the issue at this week's board meeting.

Politicised precedent

Developing nation diplomats said rejecting Iran's request would set a politicised precedent for withholding technical aid from them for peaceful atomic energy programmes.

Iran denies intent to derive plutonium from Arak, saying it would produce only radio-isotopes for medical uses, replacing a smaller light-water reactor that predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and is said by Tehran to be obsolete.

Diplomats said the most likely outcome was a compromise to defer a decision pending guidance from the Security Council, where world powers are deliberating sanctions on Iran but are split over how tough they should be.

"Deferral is the most likely option as it would help avoid alienating developing nations on the board and buy time to see what the Security Council will do to resolve this battle elsewhere," a senior IAEA diplomat told Reuters yesterday.

Diplomats said most board members wanted to avoid a divisive vote that Iran was sure to lose and blame on Western bullying.