The US ambassador to the United Nations nuclear watchdog said today that Iran's decision to halt temporarily UN inspections of its nuclear sites were "very troubling".
"Iran...is continuing to pursue a policy of denial, deception and delay," Mr Kenneth Brill said in remarks prepared for delivery at a closed-door meeting of the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Earlier it was reported that the United States and its allies on the board of the IAEA had struck a compromise today on a resolution that criticises Iran for withholding sensitive atomic information from the agency.
Diplomats close to the UN agency said the resolution, which stops short of sending Tehran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, has been officially submitted to the board and would likely be approved by consensus later today.
The deal comes after a week of negotiations on the text, originally proposed by Canada and Australia and backed by the United States. Diplomats said the US-led camp agreed to a softening of the text's harsh language to satisfy the 13 non-aligned countries on the 35-nation board.
Last night, Iran surprised the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watchdog by calling a temporary halt to inspections aimed at verifying that Tehran's atomic programme is peaceful.
Western diplomats said the move was highly troubling, but Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, Mr Pirooz Hosseini, said inspections would only be delayed three weeks because of Iran's New Year holiday beginning next week.
"This is just purely a vacation issue, a holiday issue," he said. "That was the main reason, the only reason."
A diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the halt to inspections would last much longer than the four-day official New Year holiday beginning on March 20th and was clearly not the reason for Tehran's sudden decision.
"The Iranians have postponed the inspections until the second half of April, possibly the end of April," he said.