U.S., Europe seek broad support for U.N. action

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VIENNA, Austria -- U.S. and European diplomats campaigned behind the scenes yesterday in a last-minute effort to gain the broadest possible consensus for reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council within days over concerns it is seeking nuclear weapons.

The negotiations came as the 35-nation Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began a two-day meeting on a European draft resolution calling for Tehran to be reported to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.

Iran remained defiant, and its chief nuclear negotiator threatened to suspend all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA if his country is reported to the Security Council.

Diplomats at the meeting said adoption of the resolution within the next few days was certain, but Washington and the European Union, the key backers of reporting to the United Nations, wanted to build as much support as possible.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that talks likely would take "a day or so" to finish.

"We believe we have a solid majority for the resolution," he said in Washington.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said the meeting opened a "window of opportunity" to defuse the crisis, stressing that even if the issue is reported, the Security Council would not take up the matter before next month.

"We are reaching a critical phase, but it is not a crisis," he told reporters.

The IAEA board was expected to approve the motion easily because Russia and China -- which have veto power on the Security Council, as do the United States, Britain and France -- now support reporting Iran, ending months of opposition. But protracted backroom negotiations were being held to achieve broader consensus.

Diplomats said India, which had been opposed, was leaning toward supporting the draft now that China and Russia had signed on to it.

A simple majority is needed to approve the resolution.

Although a broad majority of member nations support reporting the issue, a handful of countries that have major policy disputes with the Americans remain opposed -- among them Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and Belarus.

"My delegation manifests its total disagreement with the proposal ... to bring it to the Security Council," said chief Venezuelan delegate Gustavo Marques Marin.

Iran, which says its program is peaceful and aimed only at generating electricity, has warned that such an action would provoke it into doing exactly what the world wants it to renounce -- starting full-scale uranium enrichment, a possible step to developing nuclear weapons.

Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, reiterated that threat in a letter to Mr. ElBaradei.

He said reporting to the Security Council would leave his country no choice but "to suspend all the voluntary measures and extra cooperation" with the IAEA -- shorthand for reducing monitoring authority over Iran's nuclear activities.

Furthermore, "all the peaceful nuclear activities being under voluntary suspension would be resumed without any restriction," the letter warned.