Iran nuclear standoff a test for UN - Australia PM

Canberra, Mar 10: Australia, one of the countries which ignored the United Nations to join the US-led war in Iraq, said today (Mar 10, 2006) the Iran nuclear standoff would be an important test for the world body to show what it could do.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who alongside US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair committed forces to the Iraq war, said he supported the UN Security Council decision to intervene on Iran.

''This will be an interesting test for the United Nations,'' Howard told Australian radio.

''People who were critical of George Bush, myself and Tony Blair and others over Iraq because we didn't endlessly keep going back to the United Nations in 2003 now have an opportunity to see how effectively the United Nations will work,'' he said.

The UN Security Council is to take up the issue of Iran's nuclear research, which the West suspects is designed to give the country atomic bomb technology. Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian use only.

The United States says Iran is now its number one challenge, but says it has no plans to go to war in Iran.

Opponents of the Iraq war said the United Nations should have been given more time to solve the crisis over Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction before the US-led military campaign to oust former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

No weapons of mass destruction have ever been found.

Howard said the Iran nuclear standoff was a ''huge worry'', and he fully supported the matter going to the UN Security Council.

Australia is a founding member of the United Nations but is not a member of the Security Council.

''I'm in favour of this matter going to the United Nations, I'm in favour of the United Nations exercising all the influence it can to bring about a change in Iran, and let's hope that it works,'' he said.

Reuters