EU nations are doing their best to undermine Security Council Resolution 1696 by stalling on the intention to implement robust sanctions against a defiant Iran. Today the EU agreed to hold additional talks with Iran to try to clarify their nuclear stance within two weeks. During a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki and nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said it wanted fresh negotiations on the issue.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meet Larijani next week to try to clear up 'ambiguities' in Tehran's reply to the incentive package. "If the meeting goes well and Iran accepts the philosophy of the cooperation project we presented to it in June, I think we will be able to start a more formal negotiation," French Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche quoted Solana as saying. It was widely reported that when Solana presented Iran the incentive package back in June, he withheld the presentation of the disincentives for noncompliance.
Slovenian FM Dimitrij Rupel said after the 25 EU ministers discussed the Iranian issue in Finland on Saturday: "We give Solana two weeks for his clarification talks." But Solana told reporters: "There's no deadline, whenever we finish ... We are going to start in the coming days and I hope that it will be very short. We don't need many meetings."
The dangerous foot dragging by the EU in the face of the legally binding Chapter VII Security Council resolution is exceptionally troubling. UNSCR 1696 says that the Security Council: "Expresses its intention, in the event that Iran has not by that date complied with this resolution, then to adopt appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to persuade Iran to comply with this resolution and the requirements of the IAEA, and underlines that further decisions will be required should such additional measures be necessary;"
Article 41 of Chapter VII says: "The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."
Clearly, Iran is in violation of UNSCR 1696 and the IAEA report confirms that. When the Resolution was adopted, the P-5 expressed its intention to do so in the event that Iran was not in compliance. With the condition precedent met, the Security Council is required to pursue the condition subsequent -- sanctions -- against Iran. The P-5 + 1 will meet in Berlin on September 7 to discuss the way forward, and the U.S. will be represented by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. We hope that Britain and France will continue to fulfill their obligations as permanent members of the Security Council.
Going wobbly? *Going* wobbly!? That implies some antecedent time when they were not wobbly. WHEN WAS THAT?
Posted by: Steven | Sep 02, 2006 at 23:01