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By Evelyn Leopold
 UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N.
Security Council ran into new obstacles on Tuesday in trying to issue a
statement on reining in Iran's
nuclear ambitions after Russia
insisted on deleting key parts of the text.
A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled for Tuesday was
delayed until later in the week while diplomats talk in small groups, U.S.
Ambassador John Bolton said. Members last week thought a deal was close.
"The impact on the negotiations which we are trying to do here was not
as positive as we would have wished," British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. "That is the basic
problem."
Council members have mulled a reaction to Iran's
nuclear program, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making, since
receiving a dossier from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 8.
Russia, supported by China, has been wary of action by the Security
Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats
might escalate and prompt Iran
to cut all contact with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. On the
statement, Russia wants
about half the text deleted, China
said.
A statement requires agreement from all 15 Security Council members while a
resolution needs nine votes in favour and no veto
from any of the permanent members -- the United
States, Britain,
France, Russia and China.
The Western powers could turn the statement, drafted by France and Britain,
into a resolution and dare Russia
and China to take what
would be a serious step and veto a text on Iran.
Asked about a resolution, Britain's
Jones Parry said everything was on the table "if it produces a satisfactory
outcome, sends the right message to the government in Tehran."
"I think what France and I both feel is that if this text is to be
amended further, it should be amended in order to come to an agreed
conclusion. And if there is no prospect of an agreed conclusion we won't be
amending the text," Jones Parry said.
Moscow would like to cut a provision that
weapons of mass destruction constitute "a threat to international peace
and security" because it could lead to a action
under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which makes demands mandatory and can
lead to sanctions or even military action, China said.
"The Russian argument is that it has the implication of leading to
Chapter 7 actions," China's
U.N. ambassador Wang Guangya said.
"I believe that the Russian concern has its logic," Wang said when
asked if China
agreed.
Russia
also wants a brief statement that does not reiterate all demands from the IAEA's 35-nation board, such as suspending all uranium
enrichment activities. Instead it wants only to point to the number of the
IAEA resolution, Wang said.
NEXT STEPS?
Senior officials from the five permanent council members and Germany met
on Monday to discuss future action but came to no agreement, diplomats said.
Before the meeting, Britain
had floated the possibility of tougher Security Council measures against Tehran in exchange for
a package of incentives, which had been offered by the Europeans earlier in
talks that collapsed, diplomats said.
Russia, Wang said,
informally floated its own proposals -- talks with Iran,
the IAEA's director general Mohamed ElBaradei and the six countries, similar to talks on North Korea,
which are not part of Security Council measures.
But he said neither the British proposals nor the Russian ones were discussed
at the meeting.
"They (the Russians) argued for two tracks. "On
one hand you put pressure, on the other hand show a way out of this,"
Wang said without elaborating.
Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain,
France and Germany, negotiators for the European Union, Iran agreed
to freeze any uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities in
return for economic and political rewards.
That deal broke down last year and Iran restarted uranium conversion
in August.
(Additional reporting by Irving Arieff)
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