South Africa’s Ambassdor to UNHQ/NY, Dumisani Kumalo, who is serving as this month’s President of the UN Security Council, said late Thursday night that “If the president is going to come, this is the time to start moving now,” Kumalo said, adding he was contacting Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Javad Zarif, Reuters is reporting today.
Reuters’ Evelyn Leopold writes that “The draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, rejects nearly all the amendments from South Africa that would have stripped the text of most provisions on weapons and financial bans. But the negotiators provided a requested explanation of why each name on a list of 28 Iranian individuals, companies and institutions should be subject to an assets freeze.
In response, South Africa’s ambassador Kumalo, this month’s council president, expressed dismay. ‘They told us we would be negotiating a give and take’, he told reporters on Thursday. ‘They are doing exactly what they said they weren’t going to do’. South Africa’s main objection is that the new text would impose penalties outside of the nuclear sphere.
Pretoria also proposed a 90-day ‘time out’ in imposing the sanctions, which [British Ambassador Emyr] Jones Parry said would have rewarded ‘noncompliance by actually lifting the obligation and that would have been totally perverse’.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said amendments had to be consistent with the ‘philosophy of this resolution’, which was drafted by Germany and the five permanent council members with veto rights — Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States. The resolution demands Iran halt uranium enrichment that can be used to build a bomb or for peaceful purposes. The United States and other nations suspect Iran may be developing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian program, which Tehran denies. Among other changes rejected were requests by Indonesia and Qatar to include language encouraging a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, which the United States turned down, presumably because it was aimed at Israel. But several diplomats said pressure was being put on Washington to accept this provision to get the support of Qatar and Indonesia, both of them Islamic nations. Wolff said the nuclear-free zone ‘diverts from the focus of this resolution’. A minimum on nine votes in favor and no veto is needed to pass a resolution and the measure has such backing. But it would carry more weight with the support of an influential country like South Africa, as well as Indonesia and Qatar. The new text is a follow-up to one adopted in December banning trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles as well as freezing assets of individuals and institutions associated with atomic programs. The draft would ban exports of all weapons and freeze assets abroad of 28 more people and institutions, including commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and companies they control, and the state-owned Bank Sepah. It also calls for restrictions on new financial assistance or loans to the Iranian government. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to address the council on the day of the vote on how its nuclear program is for generating energy only…”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070323/wl_nm/iran_nuclear
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Agence France Presse is reporting: ” ‘Our intention is that there should be a vote Saturday’, Britain’s UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters after the meeting. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow for one final consideration. But the text is in blue’, indicating it is ready for an imminent vote. A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the draft was expected to receive overwhelming support. ‘The sponsors presented us with a text that took some of the amendments offered by South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar and left out others’, said South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who chairs the council this month.
‘We are disappointed because we made the amendments in good faith’, he added. Kumalo said. ‘We expected they would give our capitals a chance to look at what they could accommodate … I don’t know what is left for my minister to do’…The sponsors rejected South Africa’s suggestions for a 90-day suspension of UN sanctions to allow political negotiations with Tehran and removal of the weapons ban and many of the financial sanctions. A proposal by Indonesia and Qatar to include in the draft a paragraph recalling the goal of a ‘Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery’ also was dismissed.
The sponsors, however, agreed to add language underlining that the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear monitoring agency, ‘is internationally competent for verifying compliance with safeguards agreements, including the non-diversion od nuclear material for non-peaceful purposes’. Their text also restated that an offer of generous economic and diplomatic incentives made by the six powers to Iran last year if it halts uranium enrichment ‘remains on the table’. But Kumalo rejected the changes as ‘cosmetic’. South Africa, which dismantled its nuclear weapons program during its 1990s transition to democracy, has consistently defended Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes…At UN headquarters, diplomats said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s intention to attend the Security Council vote on sanctions had no bearing on the timing of the vote. The Iranian leader, who was granted a visa by US authorities, told French television Thursday that the proposed UN sanctions were illegal, adding that he was ‘not worried’ by the prospect of US strikes against his country over the issue. But he also promised to present ‘new proposals’ about Iran’s nuclear program, which major powers believe is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.
The sanctions draft would give Iran 60 days to comply or face ‘further appropriate measures’, meaning economic sanctions but no military action, under Article 41 of the UN Charter.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070323/pl_afp/irannuclearpolitics_
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has been in South Africa this week, presumably discussing the Security Council moves. Indonesia’s Foreign Minister was in Washington, and met U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Thursday.