VIENNA (Reuters) – The high oil price could “strangle” efforts to get the global economy back on its feet and may also hamper Asia’s ability to help the West exit its crisis, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist said on Thursday.

The IEA’s Fatih Birol said the world economy was in a more fragile state now than during the crisis of 2008-2009, when oil prices were lower.

“I believe oil prices are well-positioned today to strangle the economic recovery efforts,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a seminar with the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna.

Oil prices rose toward $108 on Thursday, helped by bigger-than-expected stock draws in the United States and tensions around Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while stronger German data offset some of the negative sentiment generated by Wednesday’s poor bond auction.

Birol said Europe was especially at risk from the high oil price, but that it could also turn into a major problem for energy-hungry Asia.

“It is a major risk for the slowdown (of) the economic growth in Asian countries which were the countries which brought us out of the financial crisis in 2008,” said Birol, whose organization represents major energy consuming countries.

“If we don’t have their strength this time it will be much more difficult to go out of this financial crisis.”

VIENNA (Reuters) – Member states of the U.N. atomic agency held rare calm, constructive discussions on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East, participants said on Tuesday, but absent Iran dismissed the meeting as a “waste of time.”

Israel and its Arab neighbours took part in the November 21-22 forum hosted by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), seen as a chance to help start a dialogue on the divisive issue of nuclear arms in the volatile region.

Although no concrete outcome was expected at the closed-door meeting, one official said the talks were “calm and professional, not fiery at all,” unlike the heated rhetoric that usually erupts between regional adversaries.

Iran, which said it would boycott the forum after IAEA member nations on Friday passed a resolution rebuking it over its nuclear programme, said such meetings were of little use because of arch-foe Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal.

As long as Israel “is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, and is not a member of the NPT and doesn’t allow inspection by the IAEA … and Western countries simply support it, such meetings will be superficial and a waste of time,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Israel, presumed to be the region’s only nuclear power and its only country that is not part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has said it would sign the 1970 pact and renounce nuclear weapons only as part of a broader Middle East peace deal with Arab states and Iran that guaranteed its security.

Israel and the United States see Iran as the region’s main proliferation threat. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, but an IAEA report earlier this month lent independent weight to the West’s mounting suspicions.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Member states of the U.N. atomic agency held rare calm, constructive discussions on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East, participants said on Tuesday, but absent Iran dismissed the meeting as a “waste of time.”

Israel and its Arab neighbors took part in the November 21-22 forum hosted by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), seen as a chance to help start a dialogue on the divisive issue of nuclear arms in the volatile region.

Although no concrete outcome was expected at the closed-door meeting, one official said the talks were “calm and professional, not fiery at all,” unlike the heated rhetoric that usually erupts between regional adversaries.

Iran, which said it would boycott the forum after IAEA member nations on Friday passed a resolution rebuking it over its nuclear program, said such meetings were of little use because of arch-foe Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal.

As long as Israel “is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, and is not a member of the NPT and doesn’t allow inspection by the IAEA … and Western countries simply support it, such meetings will be superficial and a waste of time,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Israel, presumed to be the region’s only nuclear power and its only country that is not part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has said it would sign the 1970 pact and renounce nuclear weapons only as part of a broader Middle East peace deal with Arab states and Iran that guaranteed its security.

Israel and the United States see Iran as the region’s main proliferation threat. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, but an IAEA report earlier this month lent independent weight to the West’s mounting suspicions.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear chief urged Middle East adversaries on Monday to engage in “fresh thinking” in rare talks on efforts to rid the world of atom bombs, attended by Israel and Arab states but boycotted by Iran.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, opened a two-day meeting at IAEA headquarters that is seen as an opportunity to help build confidence and reduce deep mistrust in the volatile region.

The veteran Japanese diplomat said he hoped it “will help to promote dialogue on a nuclear weapon-free zone” in the Middle East.

Iran, which Israel and the United States accuse of planning to build nuclear weapons, said it would not take part in the discussions after the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board passed a resolution on Friday rebuking it for its atomic activities.

The Islamic state, which denies there is a military purpose to its nuclear work, has accused Amano of pro-Western bias and of failing to address Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal.

“The Iranian seat is empty,” one Western official said shortly after the closed-door meeting started.

Proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said Iran’s absence was unfortunate.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog board censured Iran on Friday over mounting suspicions it is trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran said the move would only strengthen its determination to press on with sensitive work.

Almost unanimously, the agency’s 35-nation board passed a resolution expressing “increasing concern” about Iran’s nuclear program, after a U.N. report last week said the Islamic state appeared to have worked on designing an atom bomb.

In Washington, officials spoke out harshly against Iran while sources familiar with the matter said the United States was planning sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical industry that could be unveiled as early as Monday.

The sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named, said Washington wanted to send a strong message to Tehran and was looking to find a way to block foreign companies from aiding Iran’s petrochemical industry with the threat of depriving them of access to the U.S. market.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the U.N. resolution exposed the “hollowness of Iran’s claims” that its nuclear program is purely peaceful. He said the United States would continue to pressure Tehran, in part through sanctions.

“The whole world now knows that Iran not only sought to hide its uranium enrichment program from the world for more than two decades, but also engaged in covert research and development related to activities that can have only one application: building a nuclear warhead,” Carney said.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions during talks in Canada on Friday. Panetta stressed the U.S. focus was on sanctions and bringing diplomatic pressure on Tehran, said a senior defense official, briefing reporters after the talks.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran will not attend a rare meeting for Middle East countries next week to discuss efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons, an Iranian official said, signaling worsening ties between the U.N. atomic agency and Iran.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the announcement after the 35-nation governing board of the IAEA adopted a resolution on Friday rebuking Tehran over its nuclear program.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Soltanieh lashed out at IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who convened the Nov 21-22 talks in Vienna for countries in the Middle East and other agency members, as “not professional” and said he did not believe the meeting would be successful.

Amano issued a report last week which angered Iran by saying the Islamic state appeared to have worked on designing a nuclear weapon and that secret research may continue.

Soltanieh said Amano had “not even talked about Israeli nuclear capabilities,” referring to the Jewish state’s assumed atomic arsenal.

“How can we positively respond to the invitation of Mr Amano?,” he told reporters.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Major powers closed ranks on Thursday to increase pressure on Iran to address fears about its atomic ambitions, and the U.N. nuclear chief said it was his duty to “alert the world” about suspected Iranian efforts to develop atom bombs.

The six powers involved in diplomacy on Iran — the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany — overcame divisions exposed by a hard-hitting U.N. nuclear report on Iran last week and presented a united front toward Tehran.

They hammered out a joint resolution in intense negotiations and submitted it to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based U.N. body, which is expected to debate and vote on it on Friday.

But it will not satisfy those in the West and in Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, who had hoped IAEA head Yukiya Amano’s document would trigger concrete international action to rein in Tehran, such as an IAEA referral of its case to the U.N. Security Council.

Last week’s IAEA report, which assessed that Iran has been conducting research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability, has stoked tensions in the Middle East and raised a clamor in Western capitals for harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Amano stressed the need for Iran to engage in serious talks to clarify issues in his report and said he wanted to send a high-level mission to the country to tackle increasing concerns about the nature of its nuclear activities.

“It is clear that Iran has a case to answer,” Amano told a news conference on the sidelines of the board meeting.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog wants to send a high-level mission to Iran to address mounting concerns it may be seeking to design atom bombs, its head said on Thursday, and Tehran was expected to face censure at a meeting of agency member states.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report last week assessing that Iran has been conducting research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability has stoked tensions in the Middle East and heightened Western pressure for harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano announced his proposal at a meeting of its 35-nation governing board, where six major powers were set to close ranks to express deep concern about Iran’s activities and call on it to open up fully to U.N. inspectors.

Vienna-based Western diplomats said the powers had agreed compromise language for a draft resolution, to be put to governors for approval by Friday, after Western states and Russia overcame divisions sparked by the IAEA’s report on Iran.

But the resolution will not satisfy those in the West and in Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, who had hoped Amano’s document would trigger concrete international action to rein in Tehran.

Amano said he had written to the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, earlier this month to suggest the visit, which would air issues raised by the hard-hitting IAEA report on Iran.

“Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the IAEA’s core responsibilities,” the veteran Japanese diplomat told the closed meeting, according to a copy of his speech.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The United Nations nuclear watchdog wants to send a high-level mission to Iran to address mounting concerns the country may be seeking to design atomic bombs, its head said on Thursday.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report last week assessing that Iran has been conducting research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability has stoked tensions in the Middle East and heightened Western pressure for harsher punitive sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano announced his proposal at a meeting of the Vienna-based agency’s 35-nation governing board, where six major powers were expected to close ranks to increase diplomatic pressure on Tehran.

Amano said he had written to the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, earlier this month to suggest the visit, which would air issues raised by the hard-hitting IAEA report on Iran.

“Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the IAEA’s core responsibilities,” the veteran Japanese diplomat told the closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his speech.

“Throughout the past three years, we have obtained additional information which gives us a fuller picture of Iran’s nuclear program and increases our concerns about possible military dimensions,” Amano said.

“The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” he said, in his toughest public statement so far on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.