VIENNA, Austria (AP) ââ¬â Foreign ministers of the U.S. and five other key nations plan to meet next week to discuss possible new sanctions against Iran for refusing to freeze uranium enrichment and heed other U.N. Security Council demands, officials said Tuesday.
Two diplomats, who insisted on anonymity because the decision to call the session was confidential, told The Associated Press that the meeting was tentatively set for Tuesday in Berlin.
Separately, a senior official from one of the participating countries said that "elements of a new (Security Council) resolution" would be the main topic for the council’s five permanent members and Germany.
Still, the meeting was unlikely to produce a breakthrough, considering the differences among council members on how harshly Tehran should be punished.
Opposition by Russia and China to any tough sanctions has stiffened since a U.S. intelligence assessment saying Iran stopped work on a secret nuclear weapons program in 2003 ââ¬â a conclusion contrary to Washington’s previous view that such activities continued.
Both Moscow and Beijing have since put renewed emphasis on negotiating with Tehran to resolve international concerns about its nuclear program and ambitions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that point Tuesday, saying in Berlin that "negotiations about the next (U.N.) resolution on sanctions … slowed down a little bit." But she said the U.S. assessment should not banish concerns about Tehran’s nuclear defiance.
Any Security Council action will likely be delayed until the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency concludes a probe of Iran’s past nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday that its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, and Iranian leaders agreed to aim for a mid-February deadline for wrapping up the investigation.
The reported meeting in Berlin would be the first by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their counterparts from Britain, China, France and Germany since the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was made public Dec. 3.
The six countries offered Iran a package of economic incentives and political rewards in June 2006 if it agreed to freeze uranium enrichment before talks on its nuclear program. Iran refused and has defied two Security Council resolutions demanding suspension of enrichment.
While acknowledging the council is divided on the issue of tough sanctions, the senior official said all five permanent members remained committed to a third set of sanctions unless Iran freezes enrichment and obeys other council demands.
Enrichment technology can produce the material needed to make atomic warheads, but Iran says its drive to create an industrial-scale enrichment program is intended solely to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity.
U.S. officials in Washington said last month that a preliminary sanctions plan drafted by France would punish the Quds Force, part of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, for exporting banned weapons. It also would punish Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest banks that the U.S. included in its own sweeping sanctions program in October.
But U.N. diplomats say China opposes any sanctions that would interfere with trade with Iran and Russia opposes sanctions on any Iranian banks.