UN chief Kofi Annan said on Thursday that Iran is still interested in talks with the EU about its nuclear program, while the United States and the EU trio are pushing for an urgent referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Annan said that Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had affirmed to him in a 40-minute telephone conversation earlier in the day that Tehran was interested in "serious and constructive negotiations" with the EU troika -- France, Germany and Britain.

"Basically, I called him to urge an avoidance of any escalation (of the nuclear dispute), to exercise restraint, to go back and give the negotiations a chance, and that the only viable solution lies in negotiation," Annan told reporters after a luncheon with envoys of Security Council members.

"He in turn affirmed to me that they are interested in serious and constructive negotiations, but within a time frame, indicating that the last time they did it for two and a half years with no result, but (he) did indicate they were also interested in negotiations and they were serious about it."

While stressing that the crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program should be resolved in the context of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Annan hinted that he is not opposed to the referral of Iran to the Security Council.

"I think we should try and resolve it, if possible, in the IAEA context," he said. "Once that process is exhausted, it may end up in the (Security) Council and then I would leave it to the council, to decide what to do, if it were to come here."

Meanwhile, the United States intensified calls to have the country reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Speaking at a State Department briefing, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. fully agrees with Britain, France and Germany that Iran's resumption of uranium enrichment work "leaves the EU with no choice but to request an emergency meeting of the IAEA board of governors."

"That meeting would report Iran's noncompliance with its safeguards obligations to the UN Security Council," Rice said.

"We also agree that the removal of seals by the Iranian government in defiance of numerous IAEA board resolutions demonstrates that it has chosen confrontation with the international community over cooperation and negotiation," Rice added.

Nonetheless, Rice insisted that the U.S. wants "a peaceful diplomatic solution to this issue, which spares the world from the threat posed by a nuclear armed Iran."

She said the U.S. had not put military action against Iran on its agenda "at this point" to stop its nuclear program.

"The president of the United States never takes any of his options off the table and nobody would want the president to do that," Rice told the CBS Evening News.

The top U.S. diplomat made the remarks after an earlier decision by Germany, France and Britain to ask the IAEA to bring Iran before the UN Security Council.

Foreign Ministers of the three countries and Javier Solana, European Union chief diplomat, made the decision at a special meeting in Berlin on Thursday following Teheran's resumption of its nuclear fuel research on Tuesday, which it had suspended under a deal signed with the three EU nations in Paris 14 months ago.

At a joint press conference after the meeting, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, "our talks with Iran have now reached a dead end. In our view, things have come to the point where the Security Council must be engaged."

The EU decision capped two and half years of efforts to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program, which the West believes it intends to use to produce nuclear weapons.

The calls by the U.S. and the EU were immediately slammed by Tehran, and Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said they have adopted a colonialist attitude toward Iran's s nuclear program.

"To me, colonial attitude is the main reason behind the West's opposition to Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Rafsanjani was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying in the northern Iranian city of Rasht.

Rafsanjani, who is current Chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, condemned the West for "planning to deprive the Third World countries, particularly the Islamic states, of nuclear technology and to keep them always some steps behind."

Source: Xinhua