Russia and China block tough Iran sanctions: U.S.

by Mark Heinrich - Nov 1, 2007

The United States said on Thursday Russia and China had been blocking tough U.N. sanctions against Iran for months and pledged a drive to impose them if Iran did not halt nuclear activity within two weeks.

Iran's president said he was "not worried at all" about broader economic sanctions, dismissing them as ineffective.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, said China and Russia had been stalling a new United Nations Security Council resolution since late March.

The five permanent powers on the Security Council plus Germany will meet in London on Friday to weigh the scope for more sanctions. Increased U.S.-Iranian saber-rattling has raised fear of wider Middle East war if diplomatic pressure fails.

Burns, in Vienna for consultations with the U.N. nuclear watchdog director, said Iran had been given a grace period since the last U.N. resolution on March 24.

"Russia and China have been effectively blocking a third resolution since then," he told reporters. Moscow and Beijing, two of the five veto-holders on the Council and both with big trade ties to Iran, have insisted on more time for diplomacy.

Western powers agreed in September to delay seeking harsher sanctions after Iran agreed a deal with the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to answer questions about past secrets of its nuclear work within several months.

The Vienna-based IAEA will issue a report in mid-November.

Burns said a clean bill of health from the IAEA alone would not spare Iran from exposure to stiffer U.N. penalties.

"Our judgment is that if Iran has not suspended in the next couple of weeks, that's not sufficient, it will remain a refusal to meet Security Council requirements. That will be a highly relevant factor for us," he said.

"Our hope is the following: first, a third sanctions resolution will be passed as soon as possible. Second, we'd very much support seeing the EU go forward with (its own) sanctions. Third, major trading partners of Iran should reduce trade to show Iran that this is not business as usual."

LAVROV-RICE CONSULTATIONS

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday about diplomacy "aimed at resolving the Iranian nuclear problem."

The Kremlin, which argues harsher sanctions would push Iran into a dangerous corner, has tried to persuade Tehran with recent top-level visits to heed the international community and give a full account of its nuclear program.

China on Thursday again urged a diplomatic solution to the issue, recognizing it had become difficult.

Iran has defied three Council resolutions, two with modest sanctions attached, since last year demanding it stop enriching uranium. Iran says it wants nuclear-generated electricity, but Western powers suspect a disguised bid to build atom bombs.

Tension over Iran's nuclear activities has helped catapult oil prices to record highs of over $90 a barrels in recent days.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards commander warned the United States on Wednesday that it would find itself in a "quagmire deeper than Iraq" if it attacked the Islamic Republic.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested new bilateral U.S. sanctions would mainly hurt European Union countries doing business with Iran, which has vast oil and gas reserves.

"The weapon of sanctions does not work," Ahmadinejad said in a speech inaugurating a petrochemical plant on Iran's Gulf coast on Thursday. "We are not worried at all ... American companies don't have any business in Iran," he said.