Rice Floats the Idea of U.N. Sanctions on Iran, but China and Russia Reject It 
By Joel Brinkley
March 31, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/world/31diplo.html

BERLIN, March 30 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting here on Thursday with representatives of the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, raised the idea of imposing unspecified sanctions on Iran, but she received a decidedly cool reaction from China and Russia. 
Her proposal came a day after the Security Council approved a statement criticizing the Iranian nuclear program that was a result of heavy compromise. Previously, she had said that sanctions were a possibility but that it was premature to discuss them. 
Her proposal was described to reporters in a briefing aboard her plane by a senior State Department official, and she did not comment directly on her proposal during a news conference after the three-and-a-half-hour meeting here on Thursday.
But Dai Bingguo, China's vice minister of foreign affairs, rejected the idea of sanctions and offered a thinly veiled criticism of the war in Iraq when he said: The Chinese side feels there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East. We don't need any more turmoil.
The Security Council approved the statement on Wednesday after three weeks of debate. Ms. Rice and her aides praised it on Thursday, even though it was far weaker than the one the United States had originally proposed. It calls on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear monitoring arm of the United Nations, to report within 30 days on Iran's progress toward curtailing its nuclear development work. The report then goes to the Security Council, giving it an opportunity to respond.
After months of diplomacy, the United States persuaded a majority of the agency's board to report Iran to the Security Council last month. 
Ms. Rice noted on Thursday that Russia had wanted to remove the language from the Security Council statement calling for a referral to the Security Council, which would have effectively returned the case to the atomic energy agency. Russia backed down from its demand, under American pressure.
As it is, Russia and China bluntly declared on Thursday that they had no interest in imposing sanctions of any sort or in taking any further action against Iran, though both countries did express concern about the nuclear program. Russian and Chinese officials said they wanted to refer the issue back to the atomic energy agency.
Russia believes that the sole solution for this problem will be based on the work of the I.A.E.A., said the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. 
American officials say Iran is unlikely to budge from its confrontational position unless it is offered in addition to carrots some sticks, the senior official traveling with Ms. Rice said Thursday evening. Iran needs to know there will be consequences if it continues to hold out.
But the same opposition that forced the United States to accept a weaker Security Council statement than it had wanted seems likely to make it difficult to impose sanctions or other actions against Iran to persuade it to back down.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking at a disarmament conference in Geneva on Thursday, described the Security Council action as political maneuvering by some Western countries and an abuse of international mechanisms.
On her way here Wednesday night, Ms. Rice said the meeting was being held to begin discussions of the next steps to be taken against Iran, now that the Security Council statement had been approved. Later, after Russia's and China's public rebukes of the idea of taking further action, the senior administration official, briefing reporters, offered a different goal for the meeting, saying it had been an effort to keep together the coalition of nations opposed to Iran's nuclear program. 
The official, who briefed reporters traveling with Ms. Rice under the ground rule that he not be identified by name, said several nations, presumably European countries, had supported the notion of unspecified sanctions after Ms. Rice proposed the idea. He would not name the nations. 
Ms. Rice alluded to the sort of sanctions the United States would be likely to propose when, speaking to reporters on her way here, she said the United States and its allies would look at how a strong message can be sent to the Iranian regime that it's the regime that is isolated, not the Iranian people.
The senior official said Ms. Rice was referring to the idea of imposing travel bans on senior Iranian officials and freezing their foreign bank accounts, as the United States and Europe say they intend to do with regard to Belarus.