VIENNA/TEHRAN, 30 November 2004 — The UN atomic watchdog agency yesterday agreed on ways to police a suspension of Iran’s programs that can make nuclear weapons grade uranium. But confusion over what the freeze encompassed appeared to give Iran loopholes in interpreting its commitments.

The United States, which maintains Iran is trying to make nuclear arms, accused Tehran of representing a “growing threat to peace and security,” and said it could still unilaterally refer Iran to the UN Security Council.

France, Germany and Britain, who negotiated a Nov. 7 agreement with Iran on suspension, went into the board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency last week saying full suspension of uranium enrichment meant that all equipment used for enrichment must be at a standstill.

But Iran came to Thursday’s opening day of the IAEA meeting with demands that it be allowed to run its 20 centrifuges for research purposes.

The letter of commitment delivered by Iran on Sunday — excerpts of which were quoted yesterday by IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky — commits Tehran only “not to conduct any testing with these sets of components.”

Hossein Mousavian, the chief Iranian delegate to the meeting also told reporters his country only said, “there would be no testing.”

“Definitely we are not going to introduce material or any gas” into the centrifuges, he added, declining to answer if Iran’s understanding of a freeze matches that of European demands that the devices be left totally non-operational.

The enrichment process involves introducing uranium hexafluoride gas into centrifuges that then spin them to low-level nuclear fuel or highly enriched uranium used in the core of nuclear warheads.

Delegates and other diplomats with nuclear expertise agreed Mousavian’s remarks did not meet the European definition of suspension.

But they suggested the comments were meant to ease fears among Iranian hard-liners that Tehran gave up too much in exchange for a softly worded resolution. They said they still believed Iran would not run any centrifuges during the suspension — even though they refused to publicly acknowledge the demands that the rotors in the equipment remain motionless.

In return, France, Germany and Britain accepted Iran’s demand to further water down a draft resolution on policing the suspension — a text adopted yesterday by the IAEA board. It included an extra phrase insisted on by the Iranians emphasizing that suspension is not a legal or binding obligation on Tehran’s part.