The UN nuclear watchdog was expected to condemn by consensus Iran's nuclear program but not threaten sanctions when it decides Wednesday on a compromise proposal the United States worked out with key European allies, diplomats said.
"The buzz is that everyone goes along with this," a Western diplomat said about the 35-nation board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was "very satisfied" with the draft resolution from Europe's big three - Britain, France and Germany - which he said had sufficient teeth to punish any future Iranian violations of non-proliferation safeguards.
The proposal balances the US call to condemn Iran for almost two decades of covert nuclear activities with the so-called Euro 3's demand that Iran be rewarded for cooperating since October with the IAEA.
Even the some 10 non-aligned states on the board, which have advocated an even softer line than the Euro 3, are ready to approve the text, diplomats said.
Non-proliferation expert Gary Samore said the resolution was "a good compromise given that the United States, which says Iran is covertly developing nuclear weapons, was never going to get" backing at the IAEA board to take Iran to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
The United States "had to find a compromise that kept the pressure on Iran. I think this does," said Samore, a former US official now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London.
"Basically, the board has given Iran another four months to demonstrate it can carry out commitments," Samore said, referring to the next IAEA board meeting in March.
Jon Wolfsthal, a disarmament specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, said the United States did not have the "military capabilities at this point" for a new conflict while it struggles in Iraq and that US President George W. Bush "has no political incentive to try and ratchet pressure on the Iranians" with an election so close.
In Paris, European Union foreign policy representative Javier Solana said he was "very happy" with what he saw as EU efforts to curb the development of nuclear weapons in Iran through diplomacy.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, who had said that taking the issue to the Security Council could set off an international crisis, said his country was pleased with the draft resolution, arrived at in intense discussions in Vienna and other capitals since the IAEA meeting began here last Thursday.
Iran is "looking for a peaceful resolution of the issue and I think we are on the right track," he said.
The IAEA board is considering how to respond to a report from its chief Mohamed ElBaradei that Tehran has violated nuclear safeguards for the past 18 years, including making small amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium.
But ElBaradei said there was so far no evidence Iran was working on making nuclear weapons, an assertion Washington, which says Iran is part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq, derided as "simply impossible to believe."
The United States dropped demands to take Iran immediately before the Security Council for "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
But it had still wanted a guarantee that the Council be alerted if Iran's violations continue.
The United States got this guarantee, considered a "trigger mechanism" in the Euro 3's draft which says that if "any further Iranian failures come to light, the Board of Governors would meet immediately to consider . . . all options at its disposal."
Diplomats said the Euro 3 had feared that a direct mention of the Security Council could cause Iran to pull back from its October 21 agreement with them to cooperate with the IAEA.
That pact has led to Iran filing a comprehensive report on its nuclear program, pledging to allow wider inspections and suspending the enrichment of uranium.
In return, Iran was promised the issue would not go to the Security Council.
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