UN Security Council meets on Iran’s nuclear issues

NEW YORK - The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting to discuss a revised draft resolution that its author, the US, designed to impose additional sanctions on Iran for its continued work on enriching uranium.

The US said last week that progress had been made to improve the text toward meeting demands from other Security Council members.

Council members Monday said following the meeting that they plan to meet again Tuesday for further discussion of the draft and could hold an open session to vote on the text by mid-week. The new text was not immediately available.

In May, the US called for additional sanctions on top of the three rounds of sanctions imposed on Tehran since 2006. It called for tightening those sanctions and imposing new ones aimed at Iran’s banking systems and banning Iran’s access to ballistic-missile technology and targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps because of its links to Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.

UN members would be asked to be more vigilant in all transactions with Iranian banks to prevent any deals related to Iran’s nuclear or missile programmes. Cargo ships bound for Iran would be subject to inspection if suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology banned by the UN.

Iran has rejected UN demands to clarify its advanced uranium enrichment programme, which Western governments allege is a pretext for developing nuclear weapons capability. Iran said its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes, and it needs fuel for the Tehran research centre.

Iran in late May signed an agreement with Turkey, which was worked out with Brazil, to ship low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for medium-enriched uranium for the Tehran facility. Iran said it will continue to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent, which is the level considered capable of producing nuclear weapons.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Monday in Vienna that Iran has failed to cooperate with his agency to “confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

“I also need to mention that Iran is a special case because, among other things, of the existence of issues related to possible military dimensions to its nuclear programme,” Amano told the IAEA Board of Governors.