World Powers to Meet on Iran Today

U.N. Security Council powers were scheduled to meet today in New York to continue discussing possible action against Iran, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 2).

The meeting would hear from Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, who visited Moscow this week for instructions, according to AFP.  Top Russian officials have so far criticized a draft council resolution — crafted by France, Germany and the United Kingdom — that would impose trade and travel restrictions on Iran as punishment for Tehran’s refusal to suspend its nuclear program (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 2).

That criticism continued today in Brussels, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the draft resolution did not stick to the goals agreed upon last month during a London meeting between the European nations, China, Russia and the United States (see GSN, Oct. 10).

Those goals called for “reasonable” sanctions against Iran, Lavrov said, ones that would “be proportional given the actual situation as regards the nuclear program in Iran and should also be in stages.”

“We were prepared and are still prepared to draw up measures of that sort,” he added.  “What the EU troika drew up went way beyond what was agreed” (Reuters, Nov. 3).

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