Jerusalem, Nov 26: Iran's arch-enemy Israel said today it would continue to carefully monitor Tehran's nuclear activities after the UN's atomic watchdog condemned Tehran for two decades of covert nuclear activities. "We are still studying this resolution but we will continue to follow closely the worrying attempts by Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction, as is the international community as a whole," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled told.

"We will have to see if Iran reveals, or if it is revealed, what it has been up to," Peled added.

A resolution adopted today by the 35-nation Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna balanced US calls to condemn Iran for 18 years of hidden nuclear activities that included making plutonium and European demands that Iran be rewarded for cooperating since October with the IAEA. The United States dropped demands to take Iran immediately before the UN Security Council for "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

However Washington secured a guarantee, considered a "trigger mechanism" in the resolution, 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." Bureau Report