US seeks early vote on Iran sanctions
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—The United States wants a UN Security Council vote this week imposing sanctions on Iran for its failure to freeze its uranium enrichment program, the State Department said.
“We want to see a vote before the weekend,” department spokesman Sean McCormack said as representatives of the six major powers involved in the issue continued debating the language of a sanctions resolution at UN headquarters in New York. “I think we’re down to a couple of issues in the resolution,” McCormack said after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed remaining obstacles to agreement on Monday with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
The spokesman predicted a unanimous vote on the 15-member Security Council following months of arduous negotiations among the council’s five permanent members that saw Russia repeatedly seek to water down the sanctions terms. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has been in touch with some of his counterparts from the other four Security Council permanent members — Britain, China, France and Russia — as diplomats in New York worked “intensively” on drafting a resolution acceptable to all, he said. “This should be a 15-0 vote,” he said. Earlier Tuesday Lavrov said the latest revised draft resolution under discussion in New York “largely reflects our approach”.
“The proposal focuses on those spheres of nuclear activity that concern the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — enrichment of uranium, chemical processing and heavy water programmes as well as limiting deliveries... of goods and technology related to creating nuclear weapons delivery systems,” Lavrov said. “We think that on that basis it will be possible to achieve a consensus decision of the UN Security Council that would induce the Iranians to sit down at the negotiating table and ensure active and full cooperation with the IAEA on all remaining questions about Iran’s nuclear activities,” Lavrov said.
The draft submitted by Britain, France and Germany would impose a mandatory ban on trade with Iran in goods related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and place financial restrictions on persons and entities involved in the sectors. It was not immediately clear if a proposed travel ban on persons involved in the targetted sectors was still being considered after Russia strongly objected to the provision. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Tuesday that Iran would retaliate if the UN Security Council imposed the sanctions. “The European countries should know that if they insist on preventing Iran’s moves (in its nuclear work), we will consider this behaviour a hostile act and we will react in return,” he said in a speech broadcast on state television.
He did not specify what this retaliation would involve, but some officials have floated the idea of reducing cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, possibly by restricting inspections of its atomic facilities. Tehran spurned an August 31 UN deadline to freeze uranium enrichment, a process which can provide fuel for nuclear reactors but also, in highly refined form, material for the core of a nuclear bomb. Western powers suspect the Islamic Republic is seeking to acquire a nuclear weapons capability under the cover of its civilian nuclear program.
Tehran insists its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. A draft U.N. resolution would order all countries to ban the supply of specified materials and technology to Iran that could contribute to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. It also would impose a travel ban and asset freeze on key companies and individuals in the country’s nuclear and missile programs who are named on a U.N. list.