The five permanent members of the Security Council remained
bitterly divided over how to respond to Iran's nuclear crisis,
after their UN envoys held a second round of private discussions on
Friday afternoon.
At issue are elements of a draft council presidential statement
proposed by Britain and France, said diplomats attending the
90-minute meeting at the US mission to the United Nations.
Russia, which is a permanent council member along with Britain,
France, the United States and China, insisted the British-French
proposals can not serve as a good basis for consultations, they
said.
Among the proposals, Russia is particularly opposed to a
stringent 14-day deadline for Iran to comply with demands of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including suspension of
its uranium enrichment activities.
The diplomats revealed that Russia suggested a 60-day deadline
and the United States came up with a compromise of 30 days.
Britain and France are expected to water down their proposals
and put forward a new shorter text early next week.
The diplomats said the existing text calls on the IAEA to
"report to the Council within 14 days on the implementation by Iran
of the actions it has requested."
"We had a good discussion," Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya
told reporters. "We talked about our objectives, how the Security
Council can reinforce the role of the IAEA."
But he declined to go into details.
The five powers met for the first time late Wednesday after the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded a meeting in
Vienna on IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei's assessment
report on Iran's controversial nuclear program.
The IAEA's Board of Governors decided in a Feb. 4 resolution to
report Iran's controversial nuclear plan to the Security Council
after its meeting in early March. The council has received
ElBaradei's assessment report.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful
purpose, but the United States claims that Tehran is secretly
developing nuclear weapons.
In his assessment report, ElBaradei said the IAEA has not seen
any diversion of Iran's declared nuclear materials to nuclear
weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
But he also deplored the fact that insufficient information
provided by Iran had impeded the agency's verification work in the
past three years.
"Uncertainties related to the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear
program have not been clarified after three years of intensive
agency verification," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2006)
