The Security Council will begin tomorrow to review a package of marginally tougher UN sanctions to pressure Iran into ending its nuclear defiance and its growing isolation.
The package, unveiled on Friday, was agreed by foreign ministers of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- plus Germany in Berlin Tuesday.
It includes an outright ban on travel by officials involved in the Islamic Republic's nuclear and missile programs and mandates all states "to prevent the entry or transit through their territories" of individuals linked with Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
An earlier resolution approved by the Security Council in March had made the ban voluntary.
The package agreed in Berlin also include a call on all states to "inspect cargoes to and from Iran ... provided there are reasonable grounds to believe that the aircraft/vessel is transporting goods prohibited under this resolution."
It is to form the basis of a third set of economic and trade sanctions against Iran for defying UN Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment activities that the West fears could be used to make a nuclear bomb.
"It is a strong text which shows the continuity of the approach of the international community," French Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert said in a statement. "We are sending a very clear message to Iran and we are stepping up the pressure."
But some of the changes, compared with the council resolution adopted in March, appear relatively modest, merely extending for instance an assets freeze to additional Iranian officials and institutions, some UN diplomats said.
Diplomats said approval of the package, presented to the council's 10 non-permanent members on Friday, was likely to take several weeks.
A meeting of the 15 council ambassadors, scheduled for Friday, to discuss the measures was postponed until tomorrow because of the council's heavy schedule.
In Jerusalem on Thursday, the US State Department's third highest-ranking diplomat insisted that the new package was "punitive" and "builds on the last two resolutions in many of the same categories."
Nicholas Burns, the outgoing US undersecretary of state for political affairs, was responding to comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggesting that the text agreed in Berlin did not foresee fresh sanctions.
"We are open to dialogue and it is up to Iran to choose to break its growing isolation," Ripert said on Friday.
The latest package extends an assets freeze to additional Iranian officials listed in an annex to the resolution and bans the supply, sale or transfer of dual-use items.
It calls "upon states to exercise vigilance in entering into new commitments for public provided financial support for trade with Iran, including the granting of export credits, guarantees or insurance to their nationals involved in such trade."
And it urges vigilance over the activities of financial institutions in their territories with all banks domiciled in Iran, in particular Bank Melli and Bank Saderat and their branches and subsidiaries based abroad.
It also directs UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report within 90 days whether the Islamic Republic has fully suspended all sensitive nuclear fuel activities as demanded in previous council resolutions.
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