Wednesday, March 29 2006 12:08 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: Ambassadors of five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council held a round of meetings to discuss a watered down draft that calls on Iran to abandon uranium enrichment plans ahead of their ministers meet in Berlin tomorrow (Mar 30, 2006).

The new draft proposed by Britain and France with the support of the United States softens the language in earlier drafts that faced objections from Russia.

The Ambassadors met three times within a span of eight hours yesterday before circulating the draft to the remaining ten non permanent members. The Council is expected to have closed door discussions tonight (Mar 29, 2006).

Though London and Paris, backed by Washington, watered down the draft but it retains the language which asks Tehran to stop its nuclear enrichment programme that can be used for both producing fuel for civilian power plants and for making nuclear weapons, diplomats said.

However, Moscow still seemed to be dissatisfied.

Russia is also opposed to linking Iranian programme to international peace and security as it feels that the formulation could be used by a nation or group of nations to take punitive action against Tehran even if there no other resolution from the Council.

But Western diplomats say that the main purpose of the Council is to maintain peace and security and writing it in the statement should not be considered objectionable.

In their original draft, Britain and France had given 14 days to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report back on Iranian compliance to the Council demand for ending its uranium enrichment programme.

But diplomats say to placate Russia, they are prepared to increase the time period from 14 to 30 days but Moscow'sreaction was not available though it had at one stage reportedly suggested June as the deadline.

At the end of the day, diplomats said that one or two points remained to be sorted and the ambassadors had agreed on the major part of the statement. But if the few points, which are crucial, cannot the sorted out, the effort would have to be made by the ministers themselves Thursday to finalize the draft.

One point which could derail the discussions is that Russia, backed by China, wants IAEA to continue to deal with the matter and be given the task of persuading Iran to give up its programme. But the Western powers would like to keep the issue alive on the Council agenda.

In a stepped up activity prior to tomorrow's meeting, American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had discussion on telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov once again as diplomats and officials in capitals held consultations with one another to find an agreed language.