The United Nations Security Council held formal consultations Wednesday on a draft new resolution on Iran's nuclear program, with three members presenting amendments.

South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar made proposals on amending the text of the draft cosponsored by Britain, France and Germany, and agreed by China, Russia and the United States.

The six countries will report "common ideas" to their capitals and come back for more consultations Thursday afternoon, said Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, the French ambassador.
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"We'll meet tomorrow to hear from the cosponsors, what amendments they are taking, what amendments they are not taking, and then after that, we'll send it back to our capitals and then we'll take it on from there," said Dumisani Kumalo, the ambassador of South Africa, president of Security Council for March.

Sabliere said some of the proposals add clarity to the draft while others are "not consistent" with the incremental approach that increases pressure on Tehran.

South Africa proposed a 90-day suspension of the UN sanctions to allow "space for technical discussions" at the International Atomic Energy Agency and political negotiations to "achieve a peaceful and negotiated solution."

"We told them that we made the amendments in the spirit of adding value to the text," Kumalo said.

Pretoria also proposed the deletion of the weapons ban and many financial sanctions from the draft.

Qatar and Indonesia have both proposed adding in the draft a paragraph recalling the goal of a Middle East "free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery."

Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, the Qatari ambassador, urged for "a language that the Council agrees in how to approach the issues."

He said the new resolution should be a follow-up to Resolution 1737. "We cannot go too far. We should go step by step."

While the proposed inclusion of references to the WMD-free Middle East are easier to get agreement, South Africa's amendments look set to face more difficulties ahead.

"What is clear is that Iran is non-compliant with mandatory obligations imposed by the Security Council," said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. "We think it would be perverse in response to that situation to say... we now lift the obligations which currently apply to Iran."

Alejandro Wolff, the acting ambassador of the United States said some Council members "indicated that we would look at them (the amendments) in the spirit of consistency, with the conceptual architecture we have through previous resolutions... where we could provide further clarity and improve the text."

"A unanimous vote is always important to us, but the content obviously is equally important," Wolff said.

"The mood has been very good," he said. "We are going to be discussing the range of them and see which ones we can live with and which ones we cannot."

Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei y warned the country will respond to possible new UN sanctions by all means to defend itself from threats.

Khamenei made the remarks in a televised speech from the northeastern city of Mashhad, saying Iran will use "all its capabilities to strike the enemies" if the country faces threats.

The supreme leader also said in the speech that Iran will continue its nuclear activities outside international regulations if the UN Security Council insists Tehran stop uranium enrichment.

"If they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions," Khamenei said, without elaborating what kind of "illegal actions" Iran will pursue if it faces new sanctions.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed that there would be no concessions on Iran's nuclear rights amid looming vote by UN Security Council on new sanctions against Tehran.

"The Iranian nation firmly stands behind its nuclear rights and the West will eventually have to acknowledge Iran's legitimate rights," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech early Wednesday morning on the occasion of the Iranian New Year.

Ahmadinejad has planned to attend the voting session of the UN Security Council in New York and make a speech to defend Iran's nuclear rights before the voting takes place.

(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2007)