Big 5 want Iran issue reported to UN
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-01 08:10

LONDON: The UN Security Council's five permanent members agreed yesterday that the UN's nuclear watchdog should report to the Council this week on what Iran must do to co-operate with the agency.

Iran replied that any such move would kill off diplomatic efforts to end its nuclear standoff with the West, which fears Teheran is trying to build a bomb. Iran denies the charge.

As the row added to instability in world energy markets, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri said it would have no bearing on oil exports from the world's fourth-largest producer. "We have no reason to stop our exports," he said.

Libyan Energy Minister Fathi Omar Bin Shatwan said earlier that referring Iran's case to the Council would have a serious effect on oil prices, already just shy of record highs.

Foreign ministers from the five permanent Security Council states China, Russia, the United States, France and Britain supported by Germany and the European Union, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must vote tomorrow whether to send Iran's case to the Council.

"(Ministers) agreed that this week's extraordinary IAEA board meeting should report to the Security Council its decision on the steps required of Iran," they said in a joint statement after meeting in London.

Iran can count on support at the IAEA from Venezuela and an abstention from India, but observers say yesterday's compromise suggestion was likely to get a comfortable majority in any vote.

Iran said that any move to send the case to the Security Council had no legal foundation and that it would resist demands to halt sensitive atomic research and development. "We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy," state television quoted Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its chief nuclear negotiator, as saying yesterday.

"This statement does not discuss referral, but I believe that the Europeans should be more careful," the semi-official ISNA students' news agency quoted him as saying.

"We have asked for talks with the Europeans, which shows that Iran wants to try all amicable ways to achieve peaceful nuclear technology."

Iranian officials previously said any move to report its case to the Council would lead it to scale back co-operation with UN inspectors and resume uranium enrichment the most sensitive phase of the atomic fuel cycle.

With Russia and China opposing any escalation of the case, yesterday's deal stopped short of recommending a formal referral of Iran to the Council, where it could face economic sanctions.

"Iran's lawful right for the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy should be respected," said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing when meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in London yesterday. "Meanwhile, Iran should also fulfil its international obligations," Li said.

"China believes the Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved within the framework of the IAEA, and hopes that a long-term solution can be found through diplomatic negotiations between Iran and the European Union," he added.

"A compromise was reached between the participants," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

It appeared to have made a concession to Moscow by deferring any Council action until a scheduled IAEA meeting in March.

The statement did not indicate what the UN body should do when it actually has the case placed before it.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said an extensive period of "confidence building" was required from Iran.

Iran says that its nuclear programme is only for electricity and that it has a right to nuclear technology.

(China Daily 02/01/2006 page11)