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U.S. and Britain warn Tehran of new sanctions

Rice and Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Iran must come clean about nuclear programs.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday stepped up warnings to Iran to come clean about its nuclear programs soon or face new sanctions.

Ahead of the release of a new report expected to show that Iran is continuing to deny U.N. experts access to records of its past nuclear activity, the two leading diplomats said Tehran must comply with international demands to halt work that could produce atomic-weapons fuel.

They also said Iran, which denies that its programs are arms-related, must accept a package of incentives offered by major world powers that it has yet to agree to receive or face consequences at the U.N. Security Council and punitive measures from individual countries.

"There is no doubt that there are further steps that the coalition of states that are working on this could take within the Security Council framework if Iran is not prepared to accept the really quite favorable and quite generous package that has been offered to it," Rice said.

Speaking to reporters accompanying her and Miliband on a visit to California, Rice said the Iranian economy was already suffering because of existing U.S., European and U.N. sanctions and said those would continue to expand without a change in behavior by Iran's leaders.

"They are already paying consequences and, of course, there are other possible courses available to us," she said.

She added that the United States was looking at new steps to cut off more Iranian banks from the international financial system and could do so at any time over the nuclear issue as well as alleged terrorism financing.

The comments came before the release of a new report, expected as early as today, from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that diplomats say will find Iran not cooperating with its experts on accounting for previously undeclared activity.

Miliband said the report would buttress the arguments for those demanding that Tehran come clean.