Major powers will begin discussing an Iran sanctions resolution at a meeting in Europe next week if Tehran continues to defy a United Nations Security Council demand to halt uranium enrichment, the United States State Department said on Wednesday.
But Iranian President Mohammad Ahmadinejad remained unmoved, telling state media: ”Sanctions cannot discourage people from making progress.”
On the eve of a UN deadline, spokesperson Sean McCormack said Tehran was not expected to comply with UN demands so US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and top officials from Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany would meet early next week.
He gave no time or city for the meeting but diplomats said it could be Berlin or Vienna.
McCormack said the resolution must send a ”substantial signal … that the international community means what it says” by beginning to impose sanctions of increasing intensity on Iran, as promised by the major powers last June.
”[Burns] is going to be traveling to Europe, I believe, next week, early next week. That would probably be the first convocation of that group [of major powers] looking at specific language for a resolution,” McCormack said.
The United States is prepared to impose sanctions quickly and Burns told CNN: ”We believe a sanctions regime will be agreed to in September by the Security Council.”
Asked about concerns that sanctions could provoke retaliation against the United States, Burns said: ”We’re not going to be intimidated by anything the Iranians do.”
Other senior US officials acknowledged it would take time and struggle to negotiate the proposed resolution.
In New York, European diplomats at the United Nations said they expected the Security Council to begin work in earnest on a draft sanctions resolution around mid-September.
Washington pushed for sanctions talks two weeks ago, but European diplomats said they wanted to go slower to enable council members to catch up after August vacations.
The United States claims major powers are united on Iran but Russia and China remain cool to sanctions.
McCormack stressed that even after discussions on a resolution begin, Iran could still choose to end its enrichment activities and trigger broader negotiations on a package of Western incentives.
Menu of sanctions
The United States and other states also plan to intensify efforts outside of the UN structure to pressure Iran, McCormack and other officials said.
This includes new exercises by states participating in the proliferation security initiative which seeks to interdict weapons-related shipments to Iran and a crackdown on financial institutions that help fund Tehran’s activities, they said.
Iran faced the risk of sanctions after a UN nuclear watchdog report on Thursday likely will conclude Tehran has ignored a deadline to halt an atomic fuel programme Western leaders say could lead to bombs.
Ahead of the August 31 deadline, Tehran vowed ”never” to scrap the project.
McCormack said the US approach aimed to pressure Iran’s government to change its behavior ”and we are now at the next step, where we believe that sanctions are merited.”
He declined to suggest which sanctions might be imposed first but said there would be graduated steps, hinging on Iranian responses.
When major powers proposed a package of incentives last June designed to persuade Iran to jettison its nuclear programme, they also outlined a menu of sanctions if Tehran did not comply.
It includes largely symbolic sanctions like a visa ban for Iranian officials, a freeze on their assets abroad and a ban on nuclear-related exports to Iran. Wide-ranging economic embargoes and diplomatic isolation might come later.
Amid the nuclear showdown with Iran, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is due this week to become the most high-profile Iranian to visit Washington since America cut diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Khatami is not expected to meet US officials but the Washington Post on Wednesday said he would meet former president Jimmy Carter. The Carter Centre in Atlanta refused to confirm the report but the State Department said Carter is ”free to meet with whomever he pleases”. – Reuters