Six world powers are preparing to draft United Nations sanctions against Iran because talks have failed to yield a promise by Tehran to halt sensitive atomic work, a senior British official said yesterday.
He said European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana had reported back to EU countries and the US after meeting top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani at the weekend, saying Tehran had given a clear "no".
"We are intensifying preparatory efforts for what should be in a (UN) resolution," the British official said.
"(British Foreign Secretary) Margaret Beckett was talking to her counterparts over the weekend ... Unless there is a sudden and unexpected change of heart by the Iranians, we can expect this to move to New York in the coming week or so."
The US, France, Russia, China, Britain and Germany offered Iran a package of incentives in June aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon technology that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes. It ignored an August 31 deadline set by the United Nations Security Council to suspend uranium enrichment, a process used in making nuclear weapons as well as in civil power generation.
"Solana reported that Larijani had made clear to him last week that Iran was not prepared to resume suspension," the British official said.
"That's the position that President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and others had been stating in public. It came through clearly from Larijani to Solana, and Solana has accordingly reported back."
The British official said any sanctions would be "incremental, proportionate to Iran's actions, and reversible".
The first "increment" of the sanctions would be likely to focus on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, he added, but declined to give any further details about that or what further sanctions might entail.
The official said he did not believe sanctions against Iran would spark another oil shock.
A senior Iranian atomic official said suspending uranium enrichment, which the West says Iran wants to use to build atomic bombs, would not solve the nuclear standoff.
The deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Saeedi, instead suggested France could invest in Iran's nuclear industry, enabling it to supervise Tehran's work.
"We have an idea that technically and legally is the best solution.
"It is that France creates a consortium with Eurodif and Areva to carry out enrichment in Iran and thus they can closely monitor our nuclear programme," he added, referring to France's enrichment specialist and its parent company," Saeedi said.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste Blazy said the proposal could only be taken into consideration "after Iran suspends its uranium activities".
Russia believes a dispute over Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved by negotiations, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, Igor Ivanov, said.
"Russia believes that all the issues regarding Iran's nuclear case should be resolved through talks and is ready to give efforts to reach that point," Ivanov said after talks in Tehran with Larijani.
PHOTO CAPTION
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani (R) and Euroepan Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana shake hands prior to talks in Berlin in September 2006. (AFP)