Iran sanctions vote faces new delay

Reuters - The UN Security Council will likely delay a vote on a third round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, as Western countries lobby for a big vote in favor.

Tehran denies Western charges it seeks nuclear weapons and has ignored three previous Security Council resolutions demanding it freeze its uranium enrichment program, which can produce fuel for nuclear power plants or atomic weapons.

“It looks very likely there will not be a vote on the sanctions until next week,” a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Other diplomats confirmed this view.

The five permanent council members - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - and Germany, which is not on the council, agreed on January 22 in Berlin on a draft text outlining a third round of sanctions against Tehran.

Washington had hoped for a swift vote on the sanctions text and US officials said they have not given up hope of a vote in the next two days.

“It is our intention to vote on the resolution this week,” said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has said he was looking for a vote to take place on Friday.

The resolution calls for more travel and financial restrictions on named Iranian individuals and companies and makes some restrictions mandatory. Two earlier sanctions rounds were approved unanimously in December 2006 and March 2007.

With the five permanent council members and six others backing the resolution it is bound to go through, but Western countries want as close to a 15-0 result as possible and are concerned about South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and Libya.

Those four had already insisted on postponing any vote until after the UN nuclear watchdog issued its latest report on Iran last Friday, a demand to which the European co-sponsors of the resolution reluctantly agreed.

The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was mixed, saying Iran had not responded adequately to Western intelligence allegations of work linked to making atomic bombs but had clarified issues related to other past nuclear work.

Tehran said the report had vindicated it but Western countries said the opposite.

Now that the IAEA report is out, South Africa and the other skeptics want more changes to be made to the text and several diplomats said it was worth waiting if it meant increasing the number of “yes” votes, diplomats said.

However, any changes to the draft resolution would have to be minor and could not water down the actual sanctions, the diplomats said. They added there was little hope of securing Libya's vote.

Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, made clear Moscow remained committed to supporting the resolution unless Iran suspended its enrichment program over the next few days - highly unlikely as Tehran says enrichment is its right.

“If Iran in the next few days does not stop the enrichment activities ... Russia ... (will) support the resolution that has been drafted in the past month,” Churkin told reporters in Moscow via a video link from New York.

Russia and China, which have strong ties to Iran's energy industry, have previously been reluctant to sanction Iran.

They have been more supportive of the new sanctions drive, partly because the third round of penalties are only a moderate tightening of the screws from previous resolutions and because Tehran has continued enriching, diplomats say.

The five permanent council members and Germany are considering possible new moves to draw Iran into negotiations over its nuclear program, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Reuters on Wednesday.

However, a diplomat from one of the six powers said this would not have any impact on the present sanctions resolution. He also indicated there was disagreement among the six about whether adding incentives was a good idea.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the political directors from the six powers, who met in Washington on Tuesday, were examining how a 2006 incentives offer to Tehran could be presented in a way to make it more attractive.

That offer included talks with the United States on any subject if Tehran suspended uranium enrichment; airline parts for civilian planes and smoothing the way for Iran's entry to the World Trade Organization.