Europe Joins U.S. in Urging Action by U.N. on Iran 
By Richard Bernstein and Steven R. Weisman
January 13, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/international/middleeast/13iran.html

BERLIN, Jan. 12 - The leading nations of Europe joined with the United States on Thursday to declare an end, for now, to negotiations with Iran over dismantling its suspected nuclear weapons program and to demand that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.
The Europeans' announcement was made at a news conference in Berlin two days after the Iranian authorities removed internationally monitored seals on nuclear facilities involved in the enrichment of uranium that Western nations say could be used in a bomb. 
Our talks with Iran have reached a dead end, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said at the news conference after meeting here with his French and British counterparts and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. From our point of view, the time has come for the U.N. Security Council to become involved. 
Shortly afterward, in an apparently orchestrated response, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared in Washington that the United States fully supported the European action. Iran's actions, she said, have shattered the basis for negotiation.
Despite the new resolve by the Americans and Europeans, and very probably by Russia and China, on getting Iran to reverse course in the nuclear area, many experts and diplomats say the process of actually coercing that step could take a long time and may never work.
Iran is believed to be years away from making bombs but only a year or two from having the expertise to do so. For its part, the Iranian government has insisted that its nuclear program is only for peaceful commercial purposes.
Many Western experts say that its government appears determined to press ahead even if sanctions are imposed and the country becomes isolated diplomatically. There is no sign that leading nations are ready to cut off oil purchases, because such a step would send oil prices rocketing, possibly damaging the world economy.
American and European diplomats said, however, that several days of intense diplomacy had convinced them that Russia and China would join in a growing consensus that the International Atomic Energy Agency board, comprising 35 countries, should refer the matter of Iran to the Security Council, if only to register a nearly worldwide condemnation of the Tehran government.
A senior State Department official in Washington said that Russia had indicated that it would not oppose a referral at the board but that the West was trying to get Russia to go further and vote yes. On Thursday, Ms. Rice spoke about this matter to the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as she had done earlier in the week. Mr. Lavrov said in Moscow that Russia was putting a heavy premium on Iran's compliance with international regulations on nuclear development.
Iran has removed the seals from a uranium enrichment plant and therefore urgent consultations are needed, Mr. Lavrov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
The senior State Department official said, I'm not saying that Russia is in the yes column, but they're moving in that direction. If Russia abstains on a referral or even votes yes, American and European diplomats say, China will probably go along and there will be a greater chance for approval of an anti-Iran measure by India, Brazil and other so-called nonaligned members of the atomic energy agency board.
The move toward referral to the Security Council did not necessarily mean that the Council itself would impose penalties without giving negotiations still another chance to resolve the matter, several diplomats said. An initial action simply condemning Iran and calling on it to change its behavior, with the threat of punishment in the background, appeared the most probable step once the matter gets to the Council.
We've always said that going to the Security Council is not an end in itself and did not signal an end to negotiations, said Robert Joseph, under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Going to the Council provides a menu of options that can be used to try to get Iran to reverse course.
The campaign to raise pressure on Iran involved telephone calls from Ms. Rice and her top aides and plans for an extraordinary meeting on Monday in London of senior envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. 
American officials said this meeting would be focused on a strategy for a resolution aimed at referring the matter to the Security Council, to be adopted at an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency board as early as later this month. American and European officials said they were prepared to be flexible on both the timing of the resolution and its wording, to get a maximum number of countries on board.
There remained concern among some Western diplomats that while Russia and China seemed willing to abstain in a resolution of referral to the Security Council, they could demand delays or watered-down wording changes that would undercut the effort.
The possibility of more negotiations with Iran, perhaps soon, was raised again, however, by the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, who said Thursday evening that he had spoken earlier in the day to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, to head off a looming confrontation. 
Iran was still interested in serious and constructive negotiations, Mr. Annan said, adding that the only viable solution to the dispute with Iran was a negotiated one.
But American and European diplomats saw little prospect of any talks with Iran soon, at least not unless Iran took major steps to back away from a confrontation, like returning to its suspension of the conversion of raw uranium into a gas, and the enrichment of that gas into a concentrated form that could eventually be used for nuclear fuel or a bomb.
For two years, the United States has repeatedly declared that after many instances of Iran failing to disclose its nuclear activities to international inspectors, its conduct should be subject to condemnation or sanctions at the Security Council. But until this week, the United States' major European allies have declined to endorse that step.
Only after allowing the Europeans to negotiate with Iran and to offer possible incentives for suspending its activities, and encouraging Russia to make a separate offer to operate a joint uranium enrichment program on Russian soil, has the United States brought these partners around to more overt pressure.
Iran has repeatedly maintained that it has the right to develop nuclear fuel on its own soil, but the West argues that it has forfeited that right by its habit of concealing its activities.
Richard Bernstein reported from Berlin for this article, and Steven R. Weisman from Washington.