China move threatens to delay Iran sanctions By Harvey Morris in New York
Published: January 17 2010 23:51 | Last updated: January 17 2010 23:51
Western diplomats have warned that tougher sanctions against Iran could be months away after China stalled efforts to put a new package of measures before the United Nations security council.
A three-hour meeting between the five permanent members of the security council and Germany in New York on Saturday was inconclusive.
The meeting was the first of its kind since Tehran missed a deadline to respond to a package of incentives offered in October by western nations in exchange for Iran halting uranium enrichment.
Russia and China have in the past been blamed for blocking efforts to tighten sanctions on Iran.
Russia has moved closer to the western position on Iran and now appears more willing to sign on to further sanctions. Western diplomats had hoped China might follow suit.
Senior officials from the US, Russia, Britain, France and Germany arranged Saturday’s session to fit the timetable of He Yafei, Chinese vice-minister for foreign affairs, only to have him pull out because of “scheduling issues”.
It was left to a relatively low-level diplomat at Beijing’s New York mission to reiterate the Chinese view that more time should be left for diplomacy before embarking on new sanctions.
Time, according to western envoys, is what they do not have. Three previous rounds of sanctions that all took several months to negotiate have so far failed to persuade Tehran to come clean on its nuclear ambitions.
Not only does delay give Iran more time to fulfil its suspected ambition of achieving the ability to build a bomb, but in the shorter term the 2010 review conference of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is fast approaching.
Western states want new sanctions in place before Tehran has the opportunity to muddy the waters at the May review in New York by turning its nuclear issue into a dispute between the west and the developing world. The US and its European allies are preparing to toughen their already stricter unilateral measures against Iran. But their diplomats concede that Iran is most susceptible to unified international pressure, including by China. “The credible threat of further pressure does create some leverage over the Iranian system,” a western diplomat said.
In practice, after Saturday’s session, officials have scheduled little more than a telephone conference by the end of the month to exchange views on a possible sanctions package. Foreign ministers would be brought into the process once officials determined progress was possible. Western diplomats would have preferred to start discussing immediately details of a sanctions package.
However, the specifics of further measures, in which the west might seek to include restrictions on refined petroleum exports, insurance provision, and officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, were not raised on Saturday.
China’s partners argue that while Beijing is opposed to Iran developing a nuclear bomb, at the same time, it perceives no direct threat to it. It is also eager to maintain its strong economic relationship with Tehran.
They noted, however, that China is uncomfortable about being isolated at the Security Council and might eventually agree to a package of relatively soft measures.
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