The Bush administration is getting closer to a United Nations Security Council rebuke of Iran, but the latest round of diplomacy shows the United States needs the help of Cold War foe Russia to close the deal.
Iran is offering to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years, a diplomat said on Tuesday. The offer reflected Tehran’s attempts to escape Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms.
The diplomat told The Associated Press that the offer was made on Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow, in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehran’s enrichment programme to Russia. He demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information.
But Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said his country was not prepared to freeze small-scale enrichment, a key demand of Moscow, Washington and the European Union, along with dozens of other nations.
”We’ve spent a lot on this,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh said outside a 35-nation board meeting of IAEA, preparing to focus on Iran later in the day.
Moscow has become the sole negotiating partner of the Iranians over the past few months. Diplomats familiar with those talks said Moscow was insisting on a full-enrichment freeze of up to eight years, including small-scale activity.
In exchange, Russian negotiators promised to float a post-suspension resumption of limited work with centrifuges and other components of an enrichment programme, in talks with senior US and European officials.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is holding multiple meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, plus a highly unusual session in the oval office with President Bush on Tuesday.
Rice and Lavrov had dinner together Monday. US presidents customarily receive foreign heads of state in the presidential office, but seldom invite a lower-ranking official such as a foreign minister for a meeting there.
Russia is also a key player in the US drive to limit aid to the extremist group Hamas, which has taken control of the Palestinian legislature.
The US desire for Russian help against Hamas is just one of several cards Lavrov holds as the Security Council prepares to take up the case of Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Russia, which has veto power as one of the permanent members of the Security Council, is perhaps Tehran’s most important ally and business partner. Russia has also crafted a potential compromise to head off sanctions or other punishment of Iran.
China, which also has veto power on the Security Council, is appealing for further negotiation. ”Iran should co-operate closely with IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,” Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said on Tuesday in Beijing at a news conference. ”There is still room for settlement of the issue in the IAEA.”
The United States won a diplomatic coup in February when Russia went along with the US-backed effort to report Iran to the council, but had to agree to a delay of at least a month before the council could take any action. That window is closing without the progress Russia hoped to claim on its proposed nuclear compromise.
It is not clear, however, that Moscow will support a US move for penalties against Iran.
Russian agencies quoted Lavrov as saying on Monday that Russia’s proposal to move Iran’s uranium enrichment programme to Russian territory remains on the table, but that Iran must re-impose a moratorium on the enrichment of uranium and agree to new scrutiny by IAEA.
”The result of the IAEA session that has begun in Vienna can be satisfactory only if the remaining questions about Iran’s past nuclear programme are completely answered,” Lavrov said in Ottawa, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Rice telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, at the agency’s Vienna headquarters on Monday to reiterate the US position that Iran ”must cease all (uranium) enrichment-related activity,” according to State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
Meanwhile, a top state department official warned that the Security Council will intervene ”quite actively” if Iran does not act quickly on the nuclear issue.
The IAEA will reaffirm its stance this week in Vienna, ”unless Iran does a dramatic about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told the Heritage Foundation, a private research group.
He did not say what the US would ask the Security Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line toward Tehran, it is not seeking economic or other penalties immediately, and might not be able to win Russian or other backing for that move in any case. — Sapa-AP