Iranian leaders yesterday vowed to press on with Teheran's
disputed nuclear work regardless of any new UN sanctions, a day
after world powers agreed on the outline of a new resolution.
"The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will continue with
it," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the
students news agency ISNA.
"Such illegal behavior (by Western powers) ... will not divert
the Iranian nation from its path."
The United States and other Western powers fear Iran's nuclear
activities are aimed at building nuclear weapons. Iran, the world's
fourth-largest crude oil exporter, says its nuclear program is
intended to generate electricity.
World powers agreed on Tuesday on the outline of a third
sanctions resolution against Iran, but diplomats said the draft did
not contain the punitive economic measures that Washington had been
pushing for.
Ahmadinejad called on major powers to avoid repeating past
"mistakes".
"We advise them not to repeat their previous mistakes ... They
cannot make up for the past with a new mistake," the official IRNA
news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
The West has faced a diplomatic showdown with Iran since 2002
and the UN Security Council has already imposed two sets of
sanctions, in December 2006 and March 2007.
Washington has spearheaded a drive for new sanctions and had
been pushing for a new resolution to impose a ban on business with
leading Iranian state banks.
But that drive appears to have failed. Russia and China, both
commercial partners of Iran, have hardened their opposition to
tough sanctions since a US intelligence report last month said Iran
had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin
on Tuesday after a nearly two-hour meeting with his counterparts
from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, that the
new draft of a sanctions resolution would be presented to the UN
Security Council in the coming weeks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the new draft
resolution was not tough or punitive and "welcomes the progress
made between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
..."
"The measures in this draft do not have a tough sanctioning
character," Lavrov said.
He said the new draft resolution would "call on countries to be
alert in their transport relations with Iran so that those
relations are not used to transport (potentially dangerous)
materials."
His remarks suggested the United States failed to win agreement
in Berlin on punitive economic sanctions against Iran.
The draft resolution, Chinese experts said, is a compromise
between world powers.
"The resolution is the result of compromise. While the US wants
more sanctions, neither China, Russia, nor the European countries
are willing to be hard on Iran," Hua Liming, a former Chinese
ambassador to Iran, told China Daily.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who also attended the Berlin
meeting, said: "The action taken by the UN Security Council should
be helpful to the realization of the above objectives."
Yang said it is in the common interest of the international
community to resolve the Iran nuclear issue peacefully through
diplomatic negotiation.
"China expects that the US and Iran both can make some
compromise," Hua said.
As question are being raised in the US about the Bush
Administration's strategy of containing Iran by rallying the
support of Sunni Arab states, the draft resolution may exert
influence on Iran's diplomacy front, Hua said.
"China can only play an important role but not a key role in
resolving the Iran nuclear issue," he added.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Teheran had exceeded its
international obligations on its nuclear dossier.
"Iran has gone beyond its obligations," Saeed Jalili told a
committee of the European Parliament during a visit to Brussels. He
was expected to meet European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier
Solana in the Belgian capital later yesterday.
"Everyone acknowledges those activities are peaceful," said
Jalili, referring to Iran's nuclear activities. He reiterated
Tehran's belief that Iran had a right to enrich uranium.
IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei won agreement from Iran this
month to answer remaining questions about its past covert nuclear
work within four weeks.
Western diplomats say expectations are low that leaders in
Teheran will be forthcoming, but Iran says it has accelerated its
cooperation with the IAEA since then. Ahmadinejad said Iran had
"good" cooperation with the agency.
"No one aside from the agency has the right to interfere in
Iran's nuclear issue. No one can threaten us or impose something on
Iran," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
(China Daily January 24, 2008)
