Iran, Sudan Unyielding In U.N. Rift

UNITED NATIONS — Western powers are aiming to convince Iran and Sudan to accept terms imposed by the U.N. Security Council by implementing soft but gradually toughened sanctions. Instead the two renegade countries, at least rhetorically, are hardening their defiance.

U.N. diplomats said yesterday that the full 15-member council will start weighing a new proposal to impose new and slightly tougher measures against Iran as early as today.

Iran, meanwhile, still refuses to accept the council's demand that it halt enrichment of uranium. It is seeking to use the crisis as a propaganda tool by sending President Ahmadinejad, who has called past resolutions "embarrassing," to address the Security Council.

Meanwhile, in a letter to Secretary- General Ban, President Bashir of Sudan rejected a council plan to send a new international force to protect villagers in Darfur from violence. In response, Britain and America said yesterday that the council may impose new sanctions, toughening the ones imposed last year.

Russia and China are resisting toughened measures in both cases. Western officials say they hope that a united council, implementing an "incremental" approach of imposing gradually toughened sanctions, will eventually change minds in Khartoum and Tehran.

"Sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, although very weak ones, still have rather strong effects on Iran," the Israeli vice premier, Shimon Peres, said yesterday during a visit to Tokyo, according to the Daily Yomiuri. Iran's credit rating has been downgraded, he said, and added, "You cannot feed children with enriched uranium."

So far, however, Mr. Ahmadinejad has been unyielding. "It is most embarrassing that the U.N. Security Council, which should be the defender of nations' security and rights, threatens countries pursuing nuclear fuel under the law," he said Saturday, according to the AP.

In negotiations on the new council resolution, China and Russia rejected a proposed arms ban against Iran. They agreed to stop Iranian weapons exports while imposing "restrictions" on imports. "Normally when the council imposes arms bans, it means that that country or that area is in a situation of an armed conflict," the Chinese deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Liu Zhenmin, told reporters. "But right now I don't suppose Iran is in an armed conflict."

China also resisted a total travel ban on a list of Iranian officials who are connected to the country's nuclear program, agreeing only to travel "restrictions."

The council's president, Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa, said yesterday that Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet to issue an official request to appeal to the council's 15 members, but he said he would welcome such an appearance. "We already are fighting about Iran," he said, "so maybe somebody else must join too in the fight."

Mr. Ban "expressed regret" as he distributed Mr. Bashir's letter to council members yesterday, Mr. Kumalo said. Mr. Bashir "raised questions about some of the issues that the secretary-general had assumed had already been agreed." The letter rejected several provisions of a council-approved plan to send an advance U.N. team of 3,000 to Darfur and a later deployment of 22,000 African Union troops.

"If there isn't going to be anything helpful out of Khartoum," the British ambassador to the United Nations, Emyr Jones-Parry, told U.N. reporters, "then plan B will have to be part of the strategy."

"It is clear our patience is limited," a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, added.

"I would put down a resolution of sanctions, I think, in the course of next week, and I expect it to be adopted," Mr. Jones-Parry said.

But as with Iran, Russia and China are expected to significantly soften any such sanctions.