Chinese School - UN powers hit snags on Iran nuke resolution

WORLD / Middle East

UN powers hit snags on Iran nuke resolution
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-07-20 09:10

Major powers were at odds on Wednesday on how to make legally binding
demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and stop work on a reactor
that can produce plutonium, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.

US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. The Security Council
stalled on calling for a halt to Israel's deadly strikes against
Hezbollah in Lebanon, as it mulled a lasting solution centered on the
disarming of the militant Lebanese militia.[AFP]

In informal talks, Russia and China raised questions about a U.N.
Security Council resolution that Western nations want adopted. Their
concerns were similar to disputes over a North Korea resolution last week
on how to make their demands mandatory, participants at the closed-door
talks said.

"The good news is everybody had instructions," Bolton told reporters.
"The bad news is they didn't all agree.

Bolton said that while there was agreement to make mandatory the
suspension of uranium enrichment "what we have not reached agreement on
is the precise formulation of the words that will do that."

The draft under consideration is an updated version of one introduced by
the United States, Britain and France in early May but never adopted. It
includes threats of sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear program, which the
West fears is a prelude to bomb-making.

The text will also set a date, not yet determined but possibly by the end
of August, for Iran to comply.

The meetings, which resume on Thursday, included Germany and the five
Security Council members with veto power -- the United States, Britain,
France, Russia and China, the main negotiators on Iran.

At a July 12 meeting in Paris, all six countries agreed Iran had given no
indication it would engage seriously on a commercial and technological
incentive package offered to Tehran if it were willing to suspend its
nuclear programs.

The six also agreed to adopt a Security Council resolution that would
make the suspension mandatory.

If Iran still refused, they said then, "We will work for adoption of
measures under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter," which calls
for sanctions.

To Germany's U.N. Ambassador Thomas Matussek, this meant using Chapter 7
in the current and any follow-up resolution, he said on Wednesday.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin refused to comment on Chapter 7
on Wednesday but said, "There must be no misunderstanding about the
seriousness of the international community ... and the seriousness of the
need to dispel all doubts about the nature of the Iranian nuclear
program."

During the debate over North Korea's missile launches last week, China
forced council members to work around Chapter 7 and other language and
changing words, such as "decide," to "require."

Chapter 7 makes a resolution legally binding while the North Korean
resolution, according to some experts, was politically but not legally
binding.

Chapter 7 also provides for military action as well as sanctions,
providing a specific resolution is adopted to that end. Recalling the
invasion of Iraq, China and Russia fear the United States and its allies
would enforce the resolution without council authorization.

Tehran, which maintains its program is to produce energy only, has shown
no sign of suspending its nuclear work and said it would not reply to the
incentive offer until August 22.

Iran is building a heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, 120 miles (190
km) southwest of Tehran. Western nations are concerned the plant's
plutonium by-product could be used to produce nuclear warheads.

Spent fuel can be processed to extract weapons-grade plutonium. The
plutonium can also be mixed with enriched uranium to produce fuel for a
special type of nuclear reactor.

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