U.N. is moving to punish Iran, U.S. envoy says

International Herald Tribune: The United States wants the major powers to begin talks next week on a draft United Nations resolution against Iran if it does not halt its enrichment of uranium, a senior American official said Friday.

International Herald Tribune

Published: September 9, 2006

By JUDY DEMPSEY

BERLIN, Sept. 8 — The United States wants the major powers to begin talks next week on a draft United Nations resolution against Iran if it does not halt its enrichment of uranium, a senior American official said Friday.

“We are heading toward the U.N. Security Council to consider a sanctions regime,” R. Nicholas Burns, the United States under secretary of state for political affairs, said in a speech at the American Academy in Berlin after meeting with diplomats from Britain, France and Germany. He also met separately with representatives of China, Russia, Japan, Italy and Canada.

Mr. Burns said that the meeting with the European diplomats, held Thursday, was “the first time we sat together to discuss what type of sanctions” to impose on Iran. He said talks with them and the diplomats from Russia and China would resume Monday by conference call, and then shift to the United Nations.

“The American view is that following these discussions on Monday, and perhaps some others early next week, we should move this to the Security Council and draft a resolution,” he said, adding that sanctions would be “directed at the Iranian government and the nuclear industry” as well as its nuclear research program.

The sanctions proposal would consist of two phases, said a senior diplomat familiar with the talks. The first would aim to limit international travel by Iranian nuclear experts and freeze their assets outside Iran. If the enrichment program continued, the diplomat said, the United States would urge that the travel ban and freeze on assets be extended to top government officials.

He said he hoped a draft resolution would be ready when the General Assembly convenes Sept. 18.

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, is to meet Saturday with Ali Larijani, Iran’s nuclear negotiator.