Six powers reach agreement, Iran defiant

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Source: CCTV.com | 03-16-2007 09:22

Six major nations have finally reached agreement on a draft resolution imposing tougher sanctions against Iran for its disputed nuclear programme.

After two weeks of talks, the UN's five permanent Security Council members plus Germany submitted the draft resolution on Thursday. This will go before the UN Security Council for final approval next week.

The draft resolution was hammered out by ambassadors from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in response to Iran's refusal to stop its uranium enrichment programme.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution late last year, threatening Iran with sanctions if it did not stop enriching uranium in 60 days.

Under the new proposed sanctions, Iran will be banned from supplying, selling or transferring "any arms or related material".

It also imposes an embargo on conventional weapons Iran can export, and calls on states to exercise vigilance and restraint in shipping any heavy weapons to Iran.

The acting US representative to the UN, Alejandro Wolff, said the council's goal was to adopt the resolution quickly and unanimously.

Alejandro Wolff, said, "Our goal is a speedy adoption of a resolution, but a lot has to do with bringing; we'd like to see the entire Council on board. It's important objective to get as many supporters as possible. But timeliness is also an important imperative here."

Also on Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that any new sanctions on Iran will not affect his country. At a rally in Ardakan in central Iran, Ahmadinejad was defiant and dismissed any new UN resolution as " a torn piece of paper" that would not stop Tehran's nuclear work. He continues to insist that Iran's nuclear technology is only for civilian use.

Editor:Du Xiaodan