U.S., EU Press China and Russia on Iran

By BETH GARDINER

LONDON – The United States and its European allies pressed Russia and China on Monday to support bringing Iran before the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Representatives of all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China – and Germany met in London.

They were seeking to resolve differences over what action to take after Iran removed U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility last week and resumed research on nuclear fuel, including small-scale enrichment, after a 2 1/2-year freeze.

The move alarmed the West, which fears Iran intends to build an atomic bomb. Iran claims its program is peaceful, intended only to produce electricity and it has threatened to end cooperation the U.N. nuclear watchdog if it is brought before the Security Council.

The United States, Britain, France, Germany and have been pushing for a referral and the Europeans declared last week that negotiations with Tehran had reached a dead end.

Russia and China have close commercial ties with Iran and have resisted referral in the past and differences remained.

In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin held out the possibility of a compromise, saying Iran has not ruled out conducting its uranium enrichment in Russia, an idea that was floated last year. The plan would ensure oversight so that uranium would be enriched only as much as is needed for use in nuclear power plants and not to the higher level required for weapons.

"We have heard various opinions from our Iranian partners on that issue. One of them has come from the Foreign Ministry – our partners told us they did not exclude the implementation of our proposal," Putin said after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel. "In any case, it’s necessary to work carefully and avoid any erroneous moves."

European diplomats have said in recent days there are signs that Russia, which is deeply involved in building Iranian reactors for power generation, is leaning toward referral. Putin’s comments, though, seemed to suggest he was still looking for other alternatives.

China, which is highly dependent on Iranian oil, has warned that hauling Iran before the Security Council would escalate the situation.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing took a cautious tone.

"China believes that under the current situation, all relevant sides should remain restrained and stick to solving the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiations," the ministry said in a statement.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the vote on referral "ought to be as soon as possible."

"We’ve got to finally demonstrate to Iran that it can’t with impunity just cast aside the just demands of the international community," Rice said Sunday during a trip to Africa.

Speaking before Monday’s talks in London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the "onus is on Iran" to prove its program is peaceful. He said the international community’s confidence had been "sorely undermined by a history of concealment and deception" by Iran.

Straw said the dialogue with Russia and China was of "crucial importance."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesman said the London talks signaled "growing international concern at the behavior of the Iranian government and at … the words of the Iranian president," who has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said the Nazi Holocaust a "myth."

Iranian state radio, meanwhile, reported that the government had allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be its second and third nuclear power plants. Iran plans to build 20 more nuclear plants, and Russia has offered to build some of them.

Monday’s talks aimed to build consensus on what action to take ahead of an emergency board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, expected in February.

The Vienna, Austria-based agency has found Iran in violation of an international treaty intended to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. But it has not yet voted on whether to refer Iran to the Security Council.

Straw reiterated that military action against Iran is not an option.

He also said sanctions were not inevitable even if the nuclear dispute is referred to the Security Council, saying other countries had complied with council demands without the need for sanctions.

In Russia, lawmaker Andrei Kokoshin, a former National Security Council head, told http://www.strana.ru, a Web site close to the Kremlin, that "the extreme positions that are present in both Washington and Tehran are making it considerably harder for Russia to facilitate a way out of the crisis."

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak attended the talks, joined by senior diplomats from Britain, France and Germany.

Zhang Yan, director of China’s Arms Control Department, represented Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry said. Straw did not attend.

Economic sanctions targeting oil and gas exports are thought unlikely. Iran is OPEC’s second-largest producer and preventing it from doing business could disrupt the world’s energy markets.

Nevertheless, Blair’s spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy, said the international community would not be bowed by Iranian threats that economic sanctions could cause oil prices to jump.