UNITED NATIONS, March 23: The impasse among the permanent five members of the UN Security Council over a statement on Iranian nuclear programme, calling on Tehran to immediately stop enrichment activities, continues without any sign of a breakthrough, diplomats here said on Thursday.

Since the issue was referred to the Security Council in the first week of March, the five permanent members have met time and again to reach an agreement on a British/French draft of a statement but they have failed so far.

Russia and China insist that the issue should be sorted out by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Security Council’s involvement at this stage would not be prudent as it could politicize the issue more than it already has been.

On Wednesday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Beijing: “The draft includes points that effectively lay the groundwork for sanctions against Iran.”

“We will hardly be able to support this version of the draft,” he declared.

Mr Lavrov said the draft was ‘effectively aimed at removing the Iranian nuclear issue from the IAEA agenda and referring it to the UN Security Council. It is wrong.’

Mr Lavrov said: “We (Russia and China) share a common view on most international issues ... to use multilateral co-operation to reach agreement all parties can accept.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the Bahamas to meet Caribbean community foreign ministers, said she was confident an agreement would be reached on a plan for pressuring Iran into ending its enrichment activities that could produce fuel for a nuclear weapon.

“Sometimes diplomacy takes a little bit of time but we’re working very hard on it,” Ms Rice told journalists. “We will come up with a vehicle, I am quite certain of that.”

Also on Wednesday, the US ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, told a press conference in Brussels: “Our goal is a diplomatic solution. We are looking to the Security Council to reinforce the work undertaken in Vienna to achieve a diplomatic solution.”