Tehran still desires nuclear weapon, deputy director of US National Intelligence tells Congressional committee. Meanwhile increased diplomatic efforts ensure EU, NATO will continue to support sanctions. Germany, France: 'Iran continues to pose threat'
News agencies 
Iran retains key nuclear capabilities despite having frozen weapons development in 2003, and its ambitions cannot be considered benign, a senior US spy official told Congress on Thursday.
The deputy director of National Intelligence, Donald Kerr, told a House of Representatives Intelligence subcommittee that there was reason to believe Iran still wanted an ability to make nuclear weapons. 
He was responding to a Republican lawmaker who questioned the accuracy of an official National Intelligence Estimate this week that said US agencies did not know whether Iran intended to develop a nuclear weapon. 
But Iran still had the "most important" component of a future program, a uranium-enrichment plant, Kerr told the panel. That and Iran's civil nuclear power program can provide important expertise. Iran also was working on ballistic missiles, he said. 
"We did not in any way suggest that Iran was benign for the future," Kerr told the panel. "What we had to do was address the evidence we had, that at least a part of their program (was) suspended in 2003." 
Kerr noted the estimate also concluded with "moderate confidence" that Iran still wants a future weapons capability. 
Congressman Todd Tiahrt told Kerr he was puzzled by the new intelligence estimate. "We have this sort of dichotomy, the words and actions from Iran seem to be offset by the National Intelligence Estimate," Tiahrt said.  
NATO, EU will continue to back sanctions
Meanwhile on Thursday, NATO and the European Union's foreign ministers said they have agreed to maintain pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.
''On Iran, everybody around the table agreed we should not change our position,'' Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said after chairing a meeting of ministers from the two organizations.
''The reason for having the policy we have, to impose sanctions on the one hand and an economic and political deal on the other hand, remains completely valid,'' said De Gucht.
De Gucht said that despite the US report, the fact of maintaining an enrichment program indicated Tehran still had ambitions to produce nuclear weapons.
''The whole process of enrichment only makes sense when this is part of a process of producing a nuclear weapon,'' he said. ''This was an opinion that was share by everybody.''
The Bush administration lobbied world powers not to back down on Tehran. In response, leaders of France and Germany called for a two-pronged approach of pressure and negotiations with Iran.
''We are in a process and that Iran continues to pose a danger,'' German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Paris at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in response to the new American findings.
Merkel, whose coalition government has been noncommittal about a US-led push for new UN sanctions on Iran, did not specifically support fresh punitive measures, but said, ''We and our partners would like to continue with the UN process.''
Sarkozy, who supports Washington's view, said he still backed new sanctions. ''The threat exists,'' he said.
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