Russia and China block tough Iran sanctions - The United States said on Thursday Russia and China had been blocking tough U.N. sanctions against Iran for months

Russia and China block tough Iran sanctions: U.S. By Mark Heinrich
54 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071101/ts_nm/iran_nuclear_dc

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday Russia and China
had been blocking tough U.N. sanctions against Iran for months and
pledged a drive to impose them if Iran did not halt nuclear activity
within two weeks.

Iran's president said he was "not worried at all" about broader
economic sanctions, dismissing them as ineffective.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs,
said China and Russia had been stalling a new United Nations Security
Council resolution since late March.

The five permanent powers on the Security Council plus Germany will
meet in London on Friday to weigh the scope for more sanctions.
Increased U.S.-Iranian saber-rattling has raised fear of wider Middle
East war if diplomatic pressure fails.

Burns, in Vienna for consultations with the U.N. nuclear watchdog
director, said Iran had been given a grace period since the last U.N.
resolution on March 24.

"Russia and China have been effectively blocking a third resolution
since then," he told reporters. Moscow and Beijing, two of the five
veto-holders on the Council and both with big trade ties to Iran, have
insisted on more time for diplomacy.

Western powers agreed in September to delay seeking harsher sanctions
after Iran agreed a deal with the watchdog International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to answer questions about past secrets of its nuclear
work within several months.

The Vienna-based IAEA will issue a report in mid-November.

Burns said a clean bill of health from the IAEA alone would not spare
Iran from exposure to stiffer U.N. penalties.

"Our judgment is that if Iran has not suspended in the next couple of
weeks, that's not sufficient, it will remain a refusal to meet
Security Council requirements. That will be a highly relevant factor
for us," he said.

"Our hope is the following: first, a third sanctions resolution will
be passed as soon as possible. Second, we'd very much support seeing
the EU go forward with (its own) sanctions. Third, major trading
partners of Iran should reduce trade to show Iran that this is not
business as usual."

LAVROV-RICE CONSULTATIONS

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone with U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday about diplomacy
"aimed at resolving the Iranian nuclear problem."

The Kremlin, which argues harsher sanctions would push Iran into a
dangerous corner, has tried to persuade Tehran with recent top-level
visits to heed the international community and give a full account of
its nuclear program.

China on Thursday again urged a diplomatic solution to the issue,
recognizing it had become difficult.

Iran has defied three Council resolutions, two with modest sanctions
attached, since last year demanding it stop enriching uranium. Iran
says it wants nuclear-generated electricity, but Western powers
suspect a disguised bid to build atom bombs.

Tension over Iran's nuclear activities has helped catapult oil prices
to record highs of over $90 a barrels in recent days.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards commander warned the United States on
Wednesday that it would find itself in a "quagmire deeper than Iraq"
if it attacked the Islamic Republic.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested new bilateral U.S. sanctions
would mainly hurt European Union countries doing business with Iran,
which has vast oil and gas reserves.

"The weapon of sanctions does not work," Ahmadinejad said in a speech
inaugurating a petrochemical plant on Iran's Gulf coast on Thursday.
"We are not worried at all ... American companies don't have any
business in Iran," he said.

(Additional reporting by Reza Derakhshi in Assalouyeh, Iran, Boris
Groendahl in Vienna, Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow)

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