Senior officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany will meet in New York next Monday to discuss the Iran issue, a UN diplomat told Xinhua Thursday.

According to the diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak will attend the meeting. Other participants include senior foreign affairs officials from China and the so-called European Troika -- Britain, France, Germany.

It will be the second meeting of its kind since foreign ministers of the six countries gathered in London on Jan. 30 and agreed to refer the Iran issue to the Security Council.

Meanwhile, Britain and France informally briefed the 10 non-permanent members of the Council Thursday afternoon at the French Mission on the elements of their draft statement which was circulated Tuesday.

After the briefing, the five permanent members held a new round of consultation on the language of the draft statement. However, diplomats who participated in the consultation told Xinhua that the five members still failed to bridge their differences over how to respond to Iran's nuclear crisis.
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The council members are scheduled to hold on Friday their first formal meeting on the Iran issue, and are expected to express their own opinions on the text of the draft statement.

After a week of continuous talks since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sent its assessment report on Iran's disputed nuclear program to the Council on March 8, the five veto-wielding members remained divided.

Britain and France proposed in their draft statement a 14-day deadline for Iran to comply with IAEA's demands to resume suspension of its uranium enrichment activities. However, Russia only wants a statement stressing the central role the IAEA has on the Iran issue.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2006)