UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council adopted yesterday its third resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enriching uranium, an activity that Western nations say is designed to build nuclear weapons.
The previous two measures gained unanimous support of the 15-member panel, but in yesterday's balloting, Indonesia abstained, saying it "remained to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture." Fourteen countries voted in favor.
The resolution authorizes inspections of cargo to and from Iran that is suspected of carrying prohibited equipment, tightens the monitoring of Iranian financial institutions and extends travel bans and asset freezes against persons and companies involved in the nuclear program.
It adds 13 names to the existing list of five individuals and 12 companies subject to travel and asset restrictions. The new names include people with direct responsibility for building fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium ore and a brigadier general engaged in "efforts to get round the sanctions" in the two earlier resolutions.
The new measure also bans all trade and supply of so-called dual-use items, materials and technologies that can be adapted for military as well as civilian ends.
Earlier yesterday, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear monitor, said in Vienna, Austria, that newly disclosed intelligence reports that Iran had secretly researched how to make nuclear weapons were of "serious concern" and would be pursued by his office.
"Iran continues to maintain that these alleged weaponization studies related to conventional weapons only are fabricated," ElBaradei said in a speech to the agency's 35-country policy-making body. "However a full-fledged examination of this issue has yet to take place."
The studies were described last month in a briefing for the agency's governing body by Olli Heinonen, the agency's senior inspector.
They included sketches and a video that appeared to have come from Iran's own military laboratories, and Heinonen said they showed work "not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon."
In a thinly veiled criticism of Iran, ElBaradei said, "I urge Iran to be as active and cooperative as possible in working with the agency to clarify this matter of serious concern."
Iran says that the agency's findings support its claim that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, and it has rejected all suggestions that it was studying how to make nuclear weapons.
Iran's ambassador to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, called the intelligence data "forged and fabricated" and denounced the Security Council resolution yesterday as "irresponsible" and "an arrow aiming at the heart of" the atomic energy agency.
Iran argues that its program is devoted solely to producing fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity. The United States and its European allies on the council contend the real purpose is to make Iran a nuclear power, and they say they are determined to prevent that from happening.