AFP,
VIENNA: Russia rejected Thursday a compromise EU draft resolution circulated at the UN atomic watchdog on Iran's nuclear program, saying it is too tough on Tehran, diplomats said.
“It is a plane that does not fly,” Russian ambassador Grigory Berdennikov told AFP.
A Western diplomat said that at a meeting with the resolution's drafters Britain, France and Germany the Russians had crossed out clauses that cited Iran for non-compliance with international nuclear safeguards and opened the door to eventual referral to the UN Security Council, even if the Council was not specifically mentioned.
The new draft resolution had been “a tactical gesture to show flexibility. It didn't work,” the diplomat said.
Berdennikov huddled with Iranian officials for talks shortly after rejecting the draft but neither side would comment to an AFP reporter about the meeting.
The European Union and the United States are trying to win consensus this week at the 35-nation board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency for a referral, even if that means putting off actually taking Iran to the Security Council until the next meeting of the IAEA board in November.
At stake is getting Iran to halt nuclear fuel work it resumed last month, a move which scuttled talks with the EU and fanned concern in the United States and Europe that Tehran may be secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Russia, China and non-aligned nations back Tehran's right to what it says is a peaceful nuclear program and fear that Security Council action could escalate into calls for trade sanctions that would draw sharp retaliation from oil-rich Iran, diplomats said.
If there is no unanimity for the new draft resolution, the European trio, or EU-3, were ready to demand a vote on a previous draft they had distributed earlier in the week that called for immediate referral to the top UN body, diplomats said.
A second Western diplomat said the Europeans are sure to do this, although other diplomats said the EU-3 were hoping that negotiations could still succeed on the more mild, second draft resolution.
Diplomats agreed the West would win a vote on the first resolution but warned that a lack of consensus would not have a strong impact on Iran and would be a prelude to paralysis at the Security Council, which unlike the IAEA has enforcement powers but where nuclear states Russia and China have vetoes.
A European diplomat said the European trio “are determined to leave the current board meeting with an outcome” one way or another, after two years of negotiations with Iran and more than two years of an IAEA investigation that has failed to resolve crucial questions about Tehran's nuclear work.
