British, French and German diplomats began an intensive round of worldwide lobbying on Tuesday to try to maximise a vote on Iran in Vienna early next month over its suspect nuclear weapons programme.
The Europeans, backed by the United States, are confident of securing a majority of the 35 board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, for referral of Iran to the UN security council. But there are countries whose vote they cannot count on, such as Syria, Belarus, Cuba and Venezuela, and there are question marks over countries such as Algeria and Libya.
The main focus of the diplomatic push will be Moscow and Beijing, both of whom are on the board and have vetoes at the security council. Neither committed themselves to supporting referral when they met the Europeans and the US in London on Monday.
Gernot Erler, Germany’s deputy foreign minister, on Tuesday described the London talks as ”difficult”.
Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, speaking on the eve of Wednesday’s visit to Moscow, said: ”France will deploy all its efforts to ensure the international community is united… for the credibility of the agency… and above all for regional stability.”
He put Iran at the top of the agenda for talks in Moscow with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, who distanced himself from the European position yesterday. Lavrov, recalling how international sanctions had failed in Iraq, said: ”Sanctions are in no way the best, or the only, way to solve the problem.”
A Russian compromise, in which Iran would carry out uranium enrichment in Russia, was still on the table, Lavrov said. But a British official said: ”I think Iran is playing with the Russia proposal for tactical reasons.”
The Europeans said negotiations with Iran had reached a dead end last week. But a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday there was hope they could be restarted. – Guardian Unlimited Â