UNITED NATIONS: United Nations Security Council members say that they are drawing closer to a resolution on Iran

Major powers expect to send to the full U.N. Security Council on Friday (July 28) a draft resolution telling Iran to suspend nuclear work by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions if it refuses. U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said he expected the text to be adopted next week as the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, permanent council members with veto power, as well as Germany, were close to a deal. "The draft text will impose a mandatory and binding requirement on Iran that it suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities and indicate as well the agreement of the perm five plus Germany foreign ministers some weeks ago that if Iran fails to comply with this mandatory obligation, that we will move to sanctions in the Security Council. Its possible that we could put the text in blue as early as today and then we'd have to make a decision when to vote on it," said Bolton But changes are still possible, even after the draft resolution is introduced to the 15-member council, and diplomats said the United States might ask for some. Ambassador Bolton hopes that the resolution will make it clear to the Iranians they could either take advantage of the generous offer put forward by Javier Solana or face greater international isolation. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin emphasised that the draft did not impose sanctions but agreed to discuss further measures if Iran did not adhere to the resolution's demands. Hopefully, he said, Iran would comply with the resolution and engage in discussions on commercial and technological incentives, drawn up by the European Union. However, Churkin said requirements by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that Iran suspend nuclear work should not be taken lightly by the Iranians. "And we want to make sure that the package is seen in its entirety and as the six were making that very serious proposal, they made clear that they wanted Iran to suspend certain activities in order for the six to go into those negotiations. So that requirement of suspension made by the IAEA reiterated by the six, cannot simply be brushed aside as you can sometimes see in some statements by some Iranian politicians," he said Tehran has vigorously objected to the resolution and says its nuclear activities are to produce electrical power only. It has also indicated it might withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, if the resolution were adopted. At a July 12 meeting in Paris, all six countries agreed Iran had given no indication it would accept an incentive package and referred the issue to the council. Iran is building a heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, 120 miles (190 km) southwest of Tehran. Western nations are concerned the plant's plutonium by-product could be used to produce nuclear warheads.

ITN Source | July 29, 2006

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