US demands tough diplomatic action against Iran
PARIS (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Wednesday for diplomatic action "with teeth" against Iran's nuclear programme but France insisted there is no military plan for war.
Western powers meet in Washington on Friday to discuss a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution in the nuclear standoff and the US administration is frustrated at the lack of progress.
Amid a diplomatic storm over a "war" warning from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Rice said "We believe that the diplomatic track can work but it has to work both with a set of incentives and a set of teeth."
She was speaking to reporters on a plane taking her on a Middle East tour.
The United States and France want tougher sanctions against Iran, which has denied western allegations that it is covertly developing a nuclear weapon.
Washington is working on a new draft sanctions resolution to be discussed at Friday's meeting, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday in Washington.
"What we're doing is working on the elements of a resolution ... We put down on paper some of those ideas, what it might -- what a resolution might look like," McCormack said.
He said the five UN Security Council permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- with Germany would discuss the next moves on Friday.
Foreign ministers from the six, including Rice, are to meet in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, on September 28, the spokesman added.
The Security Council has adopted three resolutions against Iran. Two include sanctions because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian energy purposes.
"We hope that these meetings and any intervening discussions will move the ball forward," said McCormack, indicating US frustration. "The process hasn't moved as quickly as we would have liked, but that is par for the course with the Security Council resolutions."
The French foreign minister pressed the case for tougher sanctions during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, but he said afterwards that Russia remains reluctant to back more stringent action.
Kouchner has also sought to calm a diplomatic storm after his comments on Sunday on the possibility of war with Iran.
"Someone asked me: what does it mean when you say you are expecting the worst? I replied: the worst would be war. I didn't say: the best would be war," said Kouchner, who added that he favoured intense negotiations.
Iran, which has accused France of just carrying out US policy, lashed out again Wednesday, saying Kouchner's "war" comments were the result of "amateurs" working in European politics.
Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters in Tehran, "The current conditions are not war conditions" and said he found it hard to believe that anyone would resort "to this foolish option."
He also argued there was little chance of agreement by world powers on a third set of UN sanctions against Iran.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin said speculation of a looming conflict was "fantasy".
"Nobody should think for a single instant that we are imagining and preparing military plans concerning Iran," Morin told Canal Plus television on Wednesday.
China and Russia criticised the war talk, calling for more negotiations.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana have spoken by telephone about continuing talks on the dispute, Iran's state media reported.
A source in Larijani's supreme national security council told IRNA agency: "They talked about an appropriate time to hold discussions and the final time will be determined at the beginning of October."
Larijani and Solana held the last of several rounds of talks in Madrid in May. No progress has been reported, and Iran's ISNA news agency said Wednesday that Larijani's predecessor, Hassan Rowhani, had called off a meeting planned with Solana in Brussels on Thursday.
Larijani replaced Rowhani, who now heads a strategic think-tank, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005. Iran then reversed a suspension of uranium enrichment that Rowhani's team had agreed with the European Union.
