By Daisy Ayliffe - 21st September 2005
The EU has dropped a bid to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over Tehran’s refusal to suspend a nuclear programme.
Diplomats said the climb-down was caused by fierce opposition from Russia and China at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The 35-nation board of governors were called on to offer an international compromise on the issue this week.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog was deeply split with Russia, China and most non-aligned nations fearing action would provoke retaliation.
Iran has warned of resumption of enrichment and restricted access to inspections if referred to the UN.
The EU3 of Germany, the UK, and France dropped the demand in the interest of getting a unanimous resolution approved by the IAEA board and Berlin’s ambassador to the IAEA, Herbert Honsowitz confirmed the decision to reporters.
"The EU has withdrawn its request to send Iran's case to the Security Council," he said.
The draft resolution "requests" IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei reports on Iran's nuclear program.
The new proposals omit specific references to the UN Security Council although they do find Iran in non-compliance with international safeguards mandated under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The document also refers to, "Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligation to comply with its NPT safeguards agreement constitute non-compliance in the context of article 12 c of the statute."
A Western diplomat blamed the Russians for the climbdown, but expressed hope that the delayed referral may help to get Moscow on board.
But it was unclear if the new draft resolution would be accepted by Russians and the non-aligned nations, as the IAEA board of governors continued its meeting on Thursday.
Another diplomat described the delay as "frustrating" whilst others pointed to a concern that a lack of consensus could diminish the message they were trying to deliver to Iran.
A US official added, "By our count we got the votes, it would be a majority vote," with at least 18 of the 35 members of the IAEA board of governors for referral.
"But the question is do you do it now or do you work the diplomacy so that you tee it up so that when you finally take the next step in pushing the brinksmanship that you've got more people on your side."
The Europeans had already signalled they were ready to compromise on the resolution, recognising that they needed to secure the support of Russia, which has veto power on the UN Security Council.
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