The State Department said Washington expected the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meeting Thursday and Friday in Vienna, to move in that direction.

"Our goal is to ensure the board takes firm action in response todirector general Mohamed) ElBaradei's November 10 report on Iran's breaches of its safeguard obligations," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

"We also expect the board to give its full support to the IAEA secretariat's ongoing efforts to investigate Iran's nuclear activities and verify whether Iran has met the continuing requirements of the board's September 12 resolution," which sought verification of Iran's claim that its nuclear program has only civilian, not military, goals.

The council of governors is to decide Friday if Iran has violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which it signed, by secretly making weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

If so, the IAEA must take the matter before the UN Security Council.

ElBaradei said that a moderate draft resolution submitted last week by France, Germany and Britain was in the process of being toughened.

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