The United States and France led calls for what would be a fourth, broader set of punitive sanctions, while a senior lawmaker in Russia, which in the past has urged talks rather than punishment, said economic measures should be considered.
A senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Iran's announcement "a provocative move" that was in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and risked increasing regional instability. Among the big powers only China, which can block any U.N. sanctions with its veto on the Security Council, has remained unswervingly opposed to punishing the big Middle Eastern oil exporter.
Iran, which says uranium enrichment is part of its program to generate electricity, not make nuclear bombs, said on Monday it would start making higher-grade reactor fuel on Tuesday and add 10 uranium enrichment plants over the next year. A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Tehran had notified the U.N. nuclear watchdog of its plan and said it would damage chances of saving a proposed atomic fuel supply deal between Iran and world powers.
Iran's government said it acted in frustration over Western powers' unwillingness to consider its requests for amendments to a U.N. draft plan for the powers to provide highly processed fuel material for a nuclear medicine reactor in Tehran. Analysts said Iran would need a few months to reconfigure its Natanz plant to refine uranium to higher purity and that it lacked the technical means to build 10 more sites in the foreseeable future.
Tehran may also be having more difficulty obtaining crucial components due to U.N. sanctions, said the analysts, who added that the latest move might be a negotiating tactic.
Iran's plan to enrich from the 3.5 percent level suitable for power plant fuel to 20 percent would advance the Islamic Republic most of the way to having weapons-grade uranium. Tehran says the product is destined for the Tehran reactor, but it lacks the technology to convert this material into special fuel needed to run this plant, leaving room for doubt about Iran's intentions in enriching to higher levels.
Possible targets for any new sanctions include Iran's central bank, the Revolutionary Guards who Western powers say are key to Iran's nuclear program, shipping firms and its energy sector, Western diplomats say.
Conditions set by Iran regarding a big powers plan for it to swap low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel for a medical reactor, together with its latest defiant moves, appear to have hardened Western attitudes. The five veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members--United States, Russia, China, Britain and France--plus Germany proposed the fuel swap plan.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed on Monday that Iran should face "strong sanctions" over its nuclear program, a French official said after a meeting between the two in Paris. "They agreed that it was time to adopt strong sanctions, in the hope of restarting negotiations," said the official, who declined to be named.
"We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together," Gates said earlier.
