Turkish Foreign Minister Opposes U.N. Sanctions on Iran

Mary Beth Sheridan
04/14/2010
Washington Post
Original Source: – HYPERLINK http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0302/Bluster-at-UN-Human-Rights-Council-as-US-and-Iran-trade-barbs http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041403818.html

Turkey's foreign minister said Wednesday that he did not support new U.N. sanctions against http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iran.html?nav=el Iran, indicating there were still important holdouts as the Obama administration tries to win approval for a new resolution aimed at punishing the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/china.html?nav=el China, which holds a veto on the Security Council, as well as http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/brazil.html?nav=el Brazil and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/lebanon.html?nav=el Lebanon, two other members on the 15-member body, also have stressed the need for additional diplomacy.
We don't want to see sanctions. It will affect us. It will affect the region, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters.
Davutoglu declined to say how his government would vote when a sanctions measure comes to the Security Council. But his remarks suggest the Obama administration will have difficulty meeting its goal of new sanctions by the end of April in order to demonstrate unified international opposition to Iran's program. Three previous sanctions resolutions on Iran had near-unanimous approval.
The United States, along with http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/france.html?nav=el France and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/russia.html?nav=el Russia, last year offered to help Iran obtain the fuel needed for a medical research reactor that is expected to run out of fuel this year. Under the deal, Iran would have given up nearly 80 percent of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium in exchange for the 19.75 percent enriched uranium fuel used by the facility. U.S. officials had hoped the agreement would have stalled Iran's march to obtaining a large stockpile of enriched uranium.
Highly enriched uranium is a key ingredient in an atomic bomb. Iran has insisted its program is for peaceful purposes, but it has developed nuclear facilities secretly. Iran initially accepted the fuel-swap proposal last October, but then sent conflicting signals about its agreement, offering a series of counterproposals. U.S. officials consider the deal to be all but dead -- as do most analysts -- and in recent months the White House has pressed forward with a drive to impose new sanctions.
Iran in response has begun enriching the low-enriched uranium to 19.75 percent itself, even though it lacks the facilities and expertise to fabricate it into the fuel cells used by the Tehran-based facility.
But Davutoglu asserted that Iranian officials had recently signaled a change of approach on the nuclear-swap deal, indicating they would be more flexible. He declined to provide details.
We still think there is a possibility of a diplomatic solution, the foreign minister said.
Turkey has sought good relations with Iran because it is a major source of natural gas and an important influence in unstable countries that border Turkey -- particularly http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iraq.html?nav=el Iraq.
Turkey also is skeptical of sanctions because such penalties seriously harmed the Iraqi economy and Turkish-Iraqi trade in the 1990s, while failing to dislodge President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. officials have proposed stiffening existing sanctions, focusing especially on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite force that increasingly is a powerful force in Iran's economy, and allowing for search and seizure of suspicious cargo and a ban on trade credits. But officials already appear to have backed off plans for the U.N. resolution to name specific Iranian cargo carriers and banning the issuing of trade insurance for Iranian carriers.