The Security Council is inching toward agreeing on a revised Franco-British draft urging Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, diplomats said on Friday as China suggested that Tehran be given up to six weeks to do so.
The 15-member council met for over one hour on Friday to review the revised text, which incorporated comments made by members after a series of informal sessions earlier this week. Members agreed to meet again on Tuesday after getting reactions from their capitals.
"The response we got from our colleagues today suggests that we are pretty close to where they wanted us to be," British UN envoy Emyr Jones Parry said.
PHOTO: AP
"Our wish remains that the council should act expeditiously on this text and send the clearest possible signal [to Tehran] ... to reinforce the activities of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] Agency," he added.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere also said he was "encouraged by the reaction" to the revised text, which he noted was "getting a lot of support."
"We are not very far now from the end of the discussion," the French envoy said, adding the co-sponsors were awaiting reactions from other members' capitals to the text. "I hope the reactions will be positive."
Elements of the revised draft released on Friday said the UN nuclear watchdog would report "to the Security Council as well as to the IAEA board of governors, in [14] days on Iranian compliance with the requirements set out by the IAEA board".
These include suspending immediately all uranium enrichment activities and resuming implementation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol that allows for wider inspections of a country's nuclear facilities.
But speaking before the meeting, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya (
"We must leave sufficient time for diplomacy and for the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] to work ... at least four weeks to six weeks," he noted.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, responded: "I don't think there's really been much support to go beyond a month," adding, however, that there was some flexibility on the US side on this point.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with the Financial Times on Friday, also dismissed the 14-day period as "not very feasible".
Lavrov said he saw "a parallel" between the current Iranian crisis and the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Security Council intervened before UN inspectors had done their job.
"We would not like to see the situation where the value of the professional agencies would be underestimated ... at the expense of us getting to the bottom of the facts," Lavrov said.
Russia's UN envoy Andrei Denisov welcomed the Franco-British draft's reference to the need for IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei to send his report on Iranian compliance to both the Security Council and the IAEA board of governors.
But he also rejected a quick progress report on Iran's nuclear program, saying -- half in jest -- that fast action could lead to the bombing of Iran by June.
"Let's just imagine that we adopt it and today we issued that statement -- then what happens after two weeks?" Denisov said. "In such a pace we'll start bombing in June."
Denisov chuckled after he made the remark, but it reflected Russia's fears that the international community has not yet decided how to respond if Iran continues to resist demands that it make explicitly clear it is not seeking nuclear arms.
Meanwhile Wang said a meeting of senior foreign ministry officials of the Security Council's five permanent members and Germany in New York tomorrow aimed to "consider the next step of activities by the IAEA".
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, and his counterparts from China, France, Russia and Britain, which are permanent members of the Security Council and have veto-wielding power, plus Germany, will attend the meeting, a State Department official said on Thursday.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
Separatists in Alberta are preparing to submit a petition tomorrow that they said has enough signatures to force a referendum on independence for the oil-rich Canadian province. Polls indicate the pro-independence camp remains a minority among Alberta’s 5 million people, but has hit a historic high of roughly 30 percent. Alberta separatists are also closer than ever to forcing a referendum, riding momentum fueled by intensifying grievances over Ottawa’s control of the provincial oil industry. They have also undeniably gotten a boost from the return to power of US President Donald Trump. After launching a petition in January, Stay Free Alberta, the group
RSS