VIENNA, Austria — The U.N. nuclear watchdog met today to consider referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program, which the United States and European Union believe is not "exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Positions appeared to harden on the eve of the two-day International Atomic Energy Agency meeting after European nations formally submitted a U.S.-backed motion for the IAEA's 35-nation board to refer Iran to the Security Council.

Iran remained defiant, warning Wednesday that such action will provoke it into doing exactly what the world wants it to renounce — starting full-scale uranium enrichment, a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.

The IAEA board was expected to approve the motion easily because Russia and China — which both have veto power on the Security Council — now support reporting Iran following months of opposition.

Still, board action could be delayed until Friday, possibly even Saturday. Diplomats accredited to the meeting said the draft could still undergo small-scale modification in protracted back-room negotiations to achieve as much support as possible for referral before the board formally takes a decision on the text.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two witnesses in the Saddam Hussein trial testified today before the court adjourned for nearly two weeks, but the former Iraqi leader and his seven co-defendants had either boycotted the session or were barred from the court.

Saddam and four of the other defendants have boycotted the trial since Sunday. Today, chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman barred the remaining three defendants, the only ones who had attended this week's sessions.

The court heard two witnesses, both testifying from behind a curtain to hide their identities, before Abdel-Rahman adjourned the trial until Feb. 13.

Saddam and his co-defendants are on trial for the killing of more than 140 Shiites after the 1982 attempt on the former ruler's life in Dujail, north of Baghdad. They face death by hanging if convicted.

The first witness to take the stand Thursday said he was 13 when he was arrested in the Dujail sweep after the assassination attempt against Saddam. He told the court his sister was stripped naked and tortured in front of him.

The other witness told the court that Barzan Ibrahim, the No. 2 defendant in the trial after Saddam, tortured him in prison after he was arrested in the crackdown.

The witness said he was taken to the Baghdad headquarters of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency, where interrogators forced him to strip and hung him from his feet. They beat him with hoses and applied electric shocks to him, including to "sensitive parts" of his body, he said.