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'Serious grounds for concern'

Germany, France and Britain -- the so-called E.U.-3 -- have negotiated with Tehran for two years in a bid to end the standoff over a nuclear program the Iranians concealed from the IAEA for almost two decades.

The effort collapsed last month after Iran rejected an E.U. offer to stop nuclear cycle activities in exchange for incentives. Iran then resumed uranium conversion work which it had earlier agreed to suspend.

E.U.-3 foreign ministers Philippe Douste-Blazy, Joschka Fischer and Jack Straw, together with E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana, issued a joint statement laying out their case for referring Iran to the council.

"Under the IAEA's rules, Iran should have been reported to the United Nations Security Council two years ago," they said in the statement, published as an op-ed article in several newspapers around the world Thursday.

"We decided instead to find a way forward that would give Iran an opportunity to dispel concerns and prove that the aims of its nuclear program were entirely peaceful."

But despite their efforts and "talks in good faith," they said, Iran had rejected the European initiative.

"There are serious grounds for concern that Iran's nuclear ambitions may not be exclusively peaceful," they warned, calling on the international community collectively to meet the challenge.

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