The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council finally agreed on a statement Wednesday demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment.
The 15 members of the council are planning to meet later today to fine tune and approve the statement. The exact text hasn't yet been disclosed.
The statement is not legally binding, and will Inspector Clouseau-uhh- International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report back in 30 days on Iran's compliance.
"We are very close today to taking the first major step in the Security Council to deal with Iran's nearly 20-year-old clandestine nuclear weapons program," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. "It sends an unmistakable message to Iran that its efforts to deny the obvious fact of what it's doing are not going to be sufficient."
U.S. officials have said the threat of military action must also remain on the table.
Russia and China, needless to say oppose sanctions...too much oil and money involved! They want any council statement to make it explicit that the IAEA, not the Security Council is in charge of dealing with Iran's compliaace.
Yep. That'll happen. All El Baradi has to do is shake his finger at the mullahs.
In Moscow today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated his mantra that Moscow would not support the use of force to solve the Iranian nuclear problem.
"As many of our European and Chinese colleagues have stated more than once, any ideas involving the use of force or pressure in resolving the issue are counterproductive and cannot be supported," Lavrov said.
Stay tuned...
3 comments:
Answer: We don't.
Think about this for a second-President Bush went to the UN for a resolution on Iraq, even though he MUST have known about the oil for food scandal and that France and Russia would veto any action.
Now, President Bush is going to the UN AGAIN, even though China and Russia have said they will veto any action.
I remember reading once that one definition of insanity was doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result...*snicker*
Inspector Clouseau - hmm.. which side is this dude on?
Not on ours, Link...and that's the dinkum oil, as they say in your neck of the woods.
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