VIENNA, Austria (AFP) – The UN atomic agency voted yesterday to report Iran to the UN Security Council over fears it seeks nuclear weapons, a move opening the door to punitive action but which Iran immediately defied.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered an end to short-notice International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of his country’s nuclear programme as of today, and called for “preparations” to kick-start uranium enrichment work, which makes what can be nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Tehran to “heed this clear message” from the IAEA.

US President George W Bush said: “This important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons.”

The resolution by the 35-nation IAEA board of governors in Vienna called on the agency’s chief Mohamed ElBaradei “to report to the Security Council” steps “required of Iran”.

These include suspending “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities” and co-operating fully with IAEA inspectors.

The resolution passed by 27-3, with five abstentions.

In a concession to Iran ally and key trade partner Russia, it put off any UN Security Council action for at least a month, to give time for diplomacy until the next IAEA meeting in March.

But in a last-minute text change it mandated the board to “immediately thereafter (the March 6 board meeting) convey” a report and assessment by ElBaradei on Iran to the Security Council.

The transmission of this report would clear the way for the Council to take action that is expected first to be a statement urging Iranian co-operation, with sanctions a possibility later on.

US ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said the idea was to get Iran to “choose a course of co-operation and negotiation over a course of confrontation”, and not to punish Tehran.