Hopes for Quick Iran Sanctions Fade

Prospects for levying new economic sanctions on Iran faded yesterday, undermining earlier hopes among Western powers that the U.N. Security Council could act quickly to punish Tehran for its refusal to curb its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 6).

U.N. ambassadors from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany met yesterday in New York but could not agree on the elements of a draft resolution.  Their meeting, and a few other diplomatic conferrals over the past week, was spurred by Iran’s refusal to heed a council deadline set in December to freeze its uranium enrichment activities.

“There’s a general agreement on what the elements are and on some of them I think there’s a good understanding of where we might be heading, but it's too early to say we have reached agreement,” said acting U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff.

One diplomat said it was unlikely that a draft sanctions resolution would be readied this week.

Diplomats at the session said the next resolution would contain another 60-day deadline for Iran to suspend key parts of it nuclear program.  New sanctions envisioned by the six nations include freezing the foreign-held assets of an expanded list of Iranian individuals and firms, limiting economic incentives that some nations use to encourage their businesses to do business with Iran, and banning the travel of certain Iranian officials, Reuters reported (Reuters I/New York Times, March 7).

For its part, Iran warned today of a “serious” response if the council approves new sanctions.

“If they go ahead in an extreme manner and issue a resolution, they will receive a serious answer and the conditions will change,” said top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 7).

Perhaps anticipating a reduced opportunity for international help with its nuclear industry, Iran announced yesterday that it had begun to construct its first indigenously made nuclear power plant. 

Russia is nearing completion of a light-water power reactor at Bushehr, but a smaller reactor would be produced independently, said Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh.

“At the demand of the president, the construction of the first domestic nuclear power plant with capacity of 360 [megawatts] has started,” he said, without providing additional details (Reuters II, March 6).

A funding dispute has threatened to stall the opening of the Bushehr reactor, and Russian officials visited Iran today to seek a resolution, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 22).

Russia has charged Iran with missing payments for the reactor, a claim Iran has partially acknowledged but blamed on Moscow’s refusal to accept payment in euros instead of dollars.  Access to dollars has been affected by recent U.S. efforts to persuade international banks to reduce their cooperation with Iranian businesses.

“The main issue on the agenda of today's meeting is to discuss the crisis situation connected to the lack of funding of the project by the Iranian side,” said Vladimir Pavlov, a Russian nuclear official (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 7).

Addressing concerns that the United States might use military strikes to derail Iran’s nuclear program, Aghazadeh said Iran’s nuclear skills were irreversible.

Iran currently has a “few thousand nuclear experts,” he said.  “Now even if we imagine that they (the enemies) attack our facilities, the science of this technology is now in our young peoples’ brains.  They cannot do anything in our young peoples’ brains.”

Furthermore, post-attack facilities would be constructed to be more secure.

“Even if they attack our facilities a chance would be provided for us to build our power plants more carefully and take more action to protect our power plants,” he said (Reuters III/Washington Post, March 7).

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