UN sanctions referral vote on Feb 2-3

LONDON: Saudi Arabia broke its silence yesterday in the growing row between the West and Iran by warning Tehran that its nuclear ambitions could bring disaster to the region, even as European powers began drafting a resolution to have Iran referred to the UN Security Council next month after Russia and the West neared agreement on strategy.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration urging him to forgo atomic energy, to moderate his foreign policy and resist the temptation of interfering in Iraq.

Speaking before a terrorism conference here, Prince Saud spoke for many in the Arab world when he cautioned of the dangers of a regional arms race.

“We are urging Iran to accept the position that we have taken to make the Gulf, as part of the Middle East, nuclear free and free of weapons of mass destruction. We hope that they will join us in this policy and assure that no new threat of arms race happens in this region,” he told The Times.

He said that the problem stemmed from Israel being allowed to build nuclear warheads, prompting others to follow suit. “Nobody mentions that Israel has 100 nuclear weapons in stock, even though it is an open secret,” he said.

While the international community is largely in favour of allowing Iran to develop a civilian nuclear industry to produce power, Prince Saud said that even this was potentially dangerous, a clear reference to the nuclear reactor being built at Bushehr in Iran.

“(The Iranian reactor) is on the Gulf and being built with Russian technology. Just think if a Chernobyl accident happened here. We hope his administration will be a stabilising force and not a destabilising force,” he said.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Foreign Office said Britain, Germany and France would call for an emergency meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation board of governors in Vienna on Febuuary 2-3. A vote on sending Iran to the Security Council could be held then.

Diplomats said a London meeting of permanent Council members Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States, along with Germany, sought to bridge differences over Iran to enable an emergency IAEA session and vote.

After Russia said it was “very close” to Western views on Iran, which favour diplomatic action to curb its atomic project, Germany, France and Britain began drafting a referral resolution to submit to the IAEA board, EU diplomats said.

“It’s short. It calls for (IAEA director-general Mohamed) ElBaradei to report Iran to the Security Council,” one diplomat said.

Moscow, with a $1bn stake building Iran’s first atomic reactor, and Beijing, reliant on Iranian oil imports, have so far thwarted such a step by the IAEA board of governors. But EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was confident China and Russia would back the EU in sending the issue to the Security Council.

President Vladimir Putin signalled a change when he said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow: “As for Russia, and Germany and our European partners and the United States, we have very close positions on the Iranian problem.”

It was the clearest hint yet that Moscow, which as Iran’s main energy partner wields the greatest potential foreign leverage over Tehran, was losing patience with the Islamic republic since it resumed nuclear fuel research last week. There was no immediate comment from China.