Major powers fail to agree over Iran strategy

May 9, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4e1b3fa0-df19-11da-afe4-0000779e2340.html
http://news.ft.com/c.gif \* MERGEFORMATINET
Foreign ministers of major powers failed to come up with a joint strategy for dealing with Iran after Tehran sought to influence the negotiations with a stunning last-minute diplomatic maneuver, officials said.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said a U.S.-hosted meeting on Monday of ministers from Russia, Britain, China and Germany did not reach agreement.
“We are still considering our work,” he told reporters after the three-hour session had ended.
The late night meeting hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was also attended by Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.
A senior State Department official said: “I think the prospects for an agreement this week are not substantially good. Clearly we had a ways to go.”
Russia and China have been resisting a U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Britain and France, and backed by the United States, that would legally require Iran to halt uranium enrichment. Britain and France had wanted to get the resolution passed before the Monday night ministers’ meeting.
The meeting of the Security Council’s five veto-wielding permanent members plus Germany came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President George W. Bush proposing “new ways” to resolve their differences.
It was the first letter from an Iranian head of state to a U.S. president since Washington broke off relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Skeptical U.S. officials dismissed the 18-page letter as a diversionary tactic that did not address the crucial problem of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
‘TACTICAL MASTERSTROKE’
But a European diplomat who works on the Iran issue but was not authorized to speak publicly called the letter “another tactical masterstroke that was deliberately timed to come out today (ahead of the ministers’ meeting) and has made administration officials very nervous.”
Washington and its allies accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons. Tehran says it only wants to make civilian energy.
Earlier on Monday, China made clear that any reference to possible sanctions or war should be eliminated from the U.N. resolution ordering Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
Moscow and Beijing want a resolution but oppose invoking Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which is used routinely in dozens of Security Council resolutions for peacekeeping missions and other legally-binding actions.
The United States, France and Britain insist on Chapter 7. It allows for sanctions and even war, but a separate resolution would be required to invoke further steps of that nature.
Russia and China fear too much pressure on Iran would be self-defeating or precipitate an oil crisis. Both worry the United States would use a resolution under Chapter 7 to justify military action.
France and Britain said they were prepared to bring the measure to a vote this week, even without Russian or Chinese backing. But abstentions by either nation would show disunity.
The United States and Iran severed diplomatic ties in 1980, after radical students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized 52 Americans, holding them hostage for 444 days.
Iran recently accelerated its pace of uranium enrichment but remains far below levels needed to make an atomic bomb.
Iranian officials note the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has not found a weapons program after three years of scrutiny and does not consider Iran an imminent security threat.