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Draft on Iran sanctions approved

By Washington Post
Published January 23, 2008

The United States and five other major powers agreed Tuesday on a new draft U.N. resolution on Iran, but the compromise incorporates weakened language that only calls for "vigilance" or "monitoring" of financial and military institutions without most of the tough economic sanctions sought by the Bush administration, according to European officials familiar with its text.

To break an eight-month deadlock, the Bush administration accepted a plan that includes largely voluntary monitoring of transactions involving two banks and calls for restraints on export credits, cargo traffic and business involving individuals or institutions linked to proliferation. The toughest restriction is a travel ban on key officials, the European officials said.

The talks in Berlin were dominated by intense negotiations between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The U.N. Security Council passed resolutions, in December 2006 and March 2007, calling for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used for peaceful energy as well as deadly weapons. It promised a third resolution if Iran did not comply in 60 days.

But Russia and China, which do significant business with Iran, resisted earlier British and French drafts that called for asset freezes on Iranian banks and parts of the military, as well as a ban on arms sales to Iran. All these measures were either dropped or watered down.

"This will come as a rude shock to the Iranians," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in an interview. "They had been predicting that the Security Council was no longer unified enough to pass a third resolution, and they were wrong. The council will pass this resolution in several weeks and it will add to the international pressure on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment."

[Last modified January 23, 2008, 01:57:17]