Security Council powers near consensus on Iran

By Mark Heinrich and Madeline Chambers
January 16, 2006
Reuters
Original Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-16T170034Z_01_FOR172289_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml

LONDON (Reuters) - Key U.N. Security Council powers neared a consensus on curbing Iran's nuclear program when Russia said it had moved very close to the West's position, which favors robust diplomatic action against Tehran.
Iran's resumption of research that could advance a quest for civilian atomic energy or bombs has sparked a flurry of Western diplomacy in pursuit of a vote by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to refer Tehran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
Diplomats said a London meeting on Monday of permanent Council members Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States, along with Germany, sought to bridge differences over Iran to enable an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board. The West wants it to convene next month.
Moscow, with a $1 billion stake building Iran's first atomic reactor, and Beijing, reliant on Iranian oil imports, have so far thwarted such a move by the IAEA's 35-nation board.
But Putin signaled a change of heart, saying after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow: As for Russia, and Germany, and our European partners and the United States, we have very close positions on the Iranian problem.
It was the clearest hint yet that Moscow, which as Iran's main energy partner wields the greatest potential foreign leverage over Tehran, was losing patience with the Islamic republic since it resumed nuclear fuel research last week.
However, Putin also said the crisis should be solved without abrupt, erroneous steps -- a possible nod to concerns of some that a rapid push for U.N. sanctions could backfire. We must move very carefully in this area, he said.
There was no immediate comment from China. Beijing said last week that resorting to the Security Council might complicate the issue, citing Iran's threat to hit back by halting snap U.N. inspections of its atomic plants.
OPEC giant Iran, the world's fourth-largest exporter of crude oil, has warned that any attempt to isolate it could drive up world energy prices, damaging industrialized economies.
Russia and China are veto-wielding permanent members of the Council, along with the United States, Britain and France, and all five have nuclear arsenals.
Diplomats with the EU trio of Germany, France and Britain that scrapped a moribund dialogue with Iran last week said Russia seemed to be edging into line with Western views but that China still looked more difficult to win over.
RUSSIAN-WESTERN CONVERGENCE?
A senior EU3 diplomat said Putin's comments Russia would not stall a referral. It's not clear what exactly (his statement) translates into. We'll have to wait and see, he told Reuters.
He said China's resistance would be harder to overcome, although Beijing's decision to join other permanent Council members in formally protesting against Iran's move showed that the Chinese shared Western concerns.
Western diplomats said the London gathering was not likely to yield a plan of action. Instead, participants would return to their capitals for further consultations.
Iran says it seeks atomic energy only to power its economy -- the IAEA has unearthed no proof to the contrary -- within its rights as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But Tehran's concealment of nuclear activities for almost 20 years until it was exposed by dissident exiles in 2002, a spotty record of cooperation with the IAEA since, and calls for wiping out Israel have fired Western resolve to rein in the Iranians.
IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei told Newsweek magazine that it was not impossible Iran had a secret nuclear arms program.
If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponization program along the way, they are really not very far -- a few months -- from a weapon, he said.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw suggested Iran could rethink its course merely by being put in Security Council hands and that sanctions, which are unpalatable to many industrialized states that import Iranian oil, might not prove necessary.
The fact that Iran is so concerned not to see the matter referred ... I think underlines the strength of the authority of that body, Straw said at a London conference on terrorism.
Western officials say Iran crossed a red line last week by stripping IAEA seals from equipment that purifies uranium, used for nuclear fuel, or if highly enriched, for bombs.
But Tehran has said only direct dialogue, not threats of Security Council referral, can defuse the dispute with the West.
Putin said a compromise proposal under which Russia would enrich uranium for Iran had drawn varying Iranian responses.
The conclusion was that our Iranian partners were not ruling out this proposition, he told reporters.
Many Iranians favor acquiring a full nuclear fuel industry to be taken seriously as a Middle East power and deter what they see as threats of U.S. and Israeli attack. Washington calls Iran a major orchestrator of terrorism, something Tehran denies.
(Additional reporting by Meg Clothier in Moscow, Andrew Gray in London, Louis Charbonneau in Berlin, Paul Hughes and Pariza Hafezi in Tehran, and Francois Murphy in Vienna)