The United States has registered confidence that the UN watchdog agency will submit the controversial nuclear programme to the Security Council to try to force Iran to reverse course.
"The message that is going to be sent very clearly to Iran is that they have crossed the line," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said as the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors completed its findings.
"We expect that measure to pass and so Iran will find itself before the Security Council," he said on Wednesday.
McCormack said the report, drafts of which were circulating at the State Department, raised "certainly troubling questions" about linkages between Iran's enrichment activities and a military programme.
"You do that because you want to create a nuclear weapon," McCormack said.
While UN inspectors have been unable to go to all suspected Iranian facilities, McCormack said, "we are seeing more and more indications" that Iran's enrichment activities have the intended purpose of building a nuclear weapon.
The spokesman rejected threats by Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, to halt intrusive UN inspections and resume large-scale enrichment of uranium.
"If followed through (they) would take Iran in just the opposite direction that this world is calling on them to go," McCormack said.
He also denounced Iran as "the central banker for terrorism in the Middle East.
{{/usCountry}}He also denounced Iran as "the central banker for terrorism in the Middle East.
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