Iran Sanctions Passed Despite Obstacles

The effort to impose new nuclear penalties on Iran for its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities ended successfully yesterday after overcoming obstacles from Chinese and Russian trade interests and Washington’s own intelligence assessment, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, March 3; Wright/Lynch, Washington Post, March 4).

The final U.N. Security Council resolution increases by 13 the number of individuals and entities subject to resolutions passed in December 2006 and March 2007 without increasing the severity of the penalties, the New York Times reported.  Previously, the council had placed travel and asset freezes on five officials and 12 firms; names added to the list included people involved with advanced enrichment centrifuge development and efforts to circumvent earlier sanctions (Hoge/Sciolino, New York Times, March 4).

The resolution also calls for inspections of suspicious cargo entering and leaving Iran and demands that all countries “exercise vigilance” over transactions with Iran’s Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.

The council gave Iran 90 days to suspend its uranium enrichment program, the Post reported.  However, it is unlikely that U.S. President George W. Bush could push through additional sanctions in the remainder of his term.

Efforts to pass a resolution to punish Iran for pursuing nuclear activities widely suspected of being military in nature experienced its greatest challenge when the U.S. intelligence community concluded Tehran had halted nuclear weapons development in 2003, current and former U.S. officials said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns had pledged not to share any of his knowledge of the assessment during a Dec. 1 meeting where the five permanent Security Council member nations and Germany agreed on a broad outline for the resolution.  The future of the resolution was thrown into doubt when the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion was released two days later.

"The NIE put a stake through the heart of diplomacy on Iran," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution fellow and former high-level CIA and national security official.  "It pulled the rug out from under them in every way.  The administration now can't go to war and can't even apply much pressure."

Rushing to control the damage, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley urged their counterparts in China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom not to withdraw their support for the sanctions.  The U.S. officials argued that the assessment focused on Iran’s nuclear past and not its current uranium enrichment that could produce a nuclear weapon ingredient.

“There was a real concern at the beginning about whether we'd lose the consensus for a sanctions resolution and whether we would be able to hold the coalition together,” a high-level administration official close to diplomatic efforts told the Post.  "We didn't get into substance.  We just wanted to find out:  Will they stay with us or not?"

After two days, Russian and Chinese officials told Burns that they would not abandon the effort.  However, Washington had to give up proposed penalties against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the elite al-Quds force and two major banks to win agreement on the draft at a Jan. 22 meeting in Berlin.

 “The international community has spoken with one voice again today,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said following the resolution’s passage yesterday.  “Iran has a choice to make:  It can reap the benefits of cooperation with the rest of the world or it can continue to isolate itself and suffer the consequences of the additional sanctions imposed by the United Nations.”

The resolution undermines Iran’s right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to conduct peaceful nuclear energy programs, said Iranian U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee (Wright/Lynch, Washington Post, March 4).

"Any irrational and unlawful act will not help resolve Iran's nuclear issue.  It will complicate the dealings around this issue and it will become more difficult," Iranian deputy atomic energy chief Mohammad Saeedi said, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse I/News.com.au, March 3).

Russia today called on Iran to halt uranium enrichment activities, Reuters reported.

“We expect Iran's leadership to analyze thoroughly the declaration by the six foreign ministers as well as the contents of the adopted resolution, and opt in favor of meeting demands by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Security Council," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"This resolution is a serious political signal to Tehran about the need to cooperate with the U.N. Security Council and fulfill the demands of the IAEA's management," it added.

"It is also important that the six countries should indeed demonstrate their readiness to serious cooperation with Iran," according to Moscow (Reuters, March 4).

John Sawers, British ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday that the permanent Security Council members and Germany want EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to restart talks with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, AFP reported.

“We have asked Javier Solana to meet with Dr. Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's supreme national security council,” Sawers said in a statement issued by the six powers following passage of the sanctions resolution.

“We remain committed to an early negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and we reaffirm our commitment to a dual-track approach,” the statement said, offering to expand a 2006 package of economic and trade incentives for Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment.

“Our proposals will offer substantial opportunities for political, security and economic benefits to Iran and to the region," the statement said.  “We urge Iran to take this opportunity to engage with us all and to find a negotiated way forward.”

“We reiterate our recognition of Iran's right to develop, research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in conformity with its NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) obligations,” the nations said, while also expressing disapproval over Iran’s lack of compliance with the Security Council and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, “in particular by expanding its enrichment-related activities” (Agence France-Presse II, March 3).

Meanwhile in Vienna, Iranian officials warned that yesterday’s Security Council resolution would not achieve its goal.

“Iran will never give up its inalienable rights in using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and will not suspend its nuclear activities including enrichment,” Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters in Vienna at a meeting of the agency’s governing board.

He said the resolution was a U.S. effort to provoke Iran into isolating itself.

“We are going to disappoint Americans that hoped after each resolution in New York that Iran would withdraw from [the] Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and stop its cooperation with the IAEA,” he said.  “We will not do that, neither suspend our activities, neither suspend our full cooperation with the IAEA.”

Iran could, however, decide to hold back information that Tehran feels is out of the agency’s purview, in particular data connected to recently publicized allegations of nuclear weapon research.

“We have already done whatever we were supposed to do,” Soltanieh said.

Early last week, the agency delivered a briefing to the board which featured potentially damning documents found on a laptop reportedly taken from Iran.  The information included references to Iranian plans to dig a nuclear test shaft, to design a nuclear-capable missile re-entry vehicle, and to conduct shock-wave studies that would have nuclear trigger applications.

Iran has complained that the agency exceeded its mandate by investigating these allegations, which in any case are based on “forged and fabricated” source material, Soltanieh said.

Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, however, has asserted that the agency has the authority to check into potential weapon activities and yesterday said his inspectors have a long way to go toward clarifying the laptop accusations.

Soltanieh, however, suggested that Iran would not help.

“We gave a final assessment and additional information, confidential information,” he said.  “We have to put an end to [the] endless dirty games. … We cannot continue this.”

One immediate effect of the Security Council resolution was to kill a European effort to pass a resolution at the Vienna board meeting.  European powers had drafted a resolution calling on Iran to boost its cooperation with the agency, but failed to find support among other key board members, according to one Western diplomat in Vienna.

“That resolution is dead,” said the diplomat.  “The Russians only wanted one resolution” out of the Security Council or the IAEA board, the diplomat added.

In addition, board members belonging to the Nonaligned Movement would have opposed the European measure.

“We don’t think there is sentiment for a draft resolution … that will really damage the environment of cooperation and confidence building that had prevailed between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the agency,” said Cuban Ambassador Norma Goicochea Estenoz.  “Now is really important to give more support to the director general and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the implementation of the work plan, and we are really committed to that endeavor and we do believe that the spirit of confidence building and cooperation is the one that has to prevail.”

If the European powers had introduced their resolution, the NAM nations would have introduced an opposing declaration, said the Western diplomat.

“That would have been a real mess,” the diplomat said (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, March 4).

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