VIENNA, Sept 15: The United States on Wednesday presented key EU states with a softened version of an ultimatum over Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme but diplomats said the text was still too strong to win approval at the UN atomic agency's meeting in Vienna.
"We're hoping we've found ground for compromise," a US diplomat said of the amendments submitted along with Canada and Australia to a draft resolution presented by Britain, France and Germany.
But a Western diplomat close to the talks said the new proposal was "not a major break from previous drafts" presented by the Americans. Another diplomat said Britain was "flummoxed" by the continuing US hard line.
The United States, which accuses Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons, wants the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to end a 19-month probe of Tehran's atomic programme and bring Tehran before the UN Security Council.
In talks over a resolution that have paralysed the IAEA's board of governors meeting in Vienna this week, Washington dropped demands for IAEA inspectors to have unrestricted access to Iranian sites but upheld a demand that Iran suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment by Oct 31, according to a copy of the confidential text.
The United States is pushing for a tough resolution that sets a deadline, possibly as soon as Oct 31, for Tehran to fully suspend uranium enrichment, the process that makes fuel for civilian reactors but also the explosive material for atomic bombs, according to the text.
"We want the resolution to lay out essential and urgent steps for Iran to take," a US official said. He said the United States saw the deadline as a "trigger", so that if Iran failed to do what was asked, the IAEA would automatically at its next meeting in November refer Tehran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Britain, France and Germany, however, stress constructive engagement rather than confrontation with Iran. Their resolution gives Tehran a November deadline to allay concern that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, but does not say Iran would automatically be taken before the Security Council should it fail to do so.
Some diplomats said the Americans felt they were having trouble negotiating with the so-called Euro 3 because the Europeans were bickering and divided. "The Euro 3 is a shaky alliance. The Germans are an enormous problem and don't want to do anything" about Iran, a diplomat said.
But a Western diplomat close to the European side called such comments "ridiculous". The diplomat said the Euro 3 might "need some time to compare notes and views" but had been united since talks began in Vienna on Monday, adding that the US demands were "drastic" and "do not find the support of anybody".
Non-aligned states were firmly in support of the European position. Malaysia's IAEA ambassador Hussein Haniff said they "do not want to see a trigger mechanism because that is pre-emptive, pre-judging a conclusion".
A German specialist on Iran Johannes Reissner said in Berlin that "no one in Europe wants sanctions on Iran". He said France and Britain have oil interests in the country while Germany has other commercial interests there.
Reissner, who works at Berlin's Science and Political Foundation, said the problem was that Iran had a right to enrich uranium, since this is authorized by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran has said it will carry out enrichment under IAEA supervision. Mr Haniff said: "Why is the United States so concerned to block this" since the Iranian enrichment would be "a peaceful use under appropriate safeguards". Iran's powerful former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, vowed on Wednesday his country would resist international efforts to prevent it from mastering nuclear technology. -AFP
