VIENNA—The United States said on Thursday Russia and China had been blocking tough U.N. sanctions against Iran for months and pledged a drive to impose them if Iran did not halt nuclear activity within two weeks.
Iran's president said he was "not worried at all" about broader economic sanctions it faces over continued defiance of U.N. Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium, dismissing such pressure as ineffective.
Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, said China and Russia had been stalling a new United Nations Security Council resolution for about six months.
The five permanent powers on the Security Council plus Germany will meet in London on Friday to weigh the scope for more sanctions. Increased U.S.-Iranian sabre-rattling has raised fears of wider Middle East war if diplomatic pressure fails.
TEHRAN—Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog ended a round of negotiations on Thursday aimed at clearing up suspicions about Tehran's atomic activities and a senior Iranian official said both sides expressed satisfaction with the talks.
The head of the Iranian delegation, Javad Vaeedi, said it had given "the necessary information and answers" to questions raised by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during four days of talks in Tehran.
The session, which began on Monday, ended a day before world powers were due to meet in London to discuss a possible third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt work the West fears is aimed at making nuclear bombs.
After stonewalling the U.N. agency for years, Iran pledged in August to answer questions about past secret aspects of its programme by the end of 2007 in the hope of warding off tougher U.N. sanctions.
The IAEA has withheld comment on whether Iran, in a series of talks since August, has been resolving the issues of transparency one by one as promised. An IAEA report is due in mid-November.
This week's talks covered questions about Iran's development of centrifuges used to enrich uranium, which can fuel power plants but also, if refined further, provide material for bombs.
Iran uses a breakdown-prone 1970s vintage of centrifuge, called the "P-1". It is researching an advanced P-2 model able to refine uranium much faster, using less energy, at sites off limits to IAEA inspectors.
"The Iranian delegation and the delegation from the agency ... expressed satisfaction about the trend of talks on the issues of P-1 and P-2," Vaeedi was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster.
"The head of the agency's delegation (IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen) and other experts brought up all their ambiguities and questions ... and the Iranian side gave the necessary information and answers to remove the ambiguities."
The IAEA says answers to the questions would help it judge whether Iran's activity is wholly peaceful or not.
Among questions yet to be addressed are those concerning possible experiments linking uranium processing and missile warhead designs.
The United States says the Iran-IAEA deal failed to address the core U.N. demand that Tehran suspend work that could be used for making bombs. Washington is pushing for tougher U.N. sanctions to step up pressure on the Middle East country.
Iran says its programme is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.
Burns, in Vienna for consultations with the U.N. nuclear watchdog director, said Iran was given a two-month grace period after the last U.N. resolution on March 24 to allow for further talks, but pressed ahead with enrichment anyway.
"Russia and China have been effectively blocking a third resolution since then," he told reporters. Moscow and Beijing, two of the five veto-holders on the Council and both with big trade ties to Iran, have insisted on more time for diplomacy.
Western powers agreed in September to delay seeking harsher sanctions after Iran agreed a deal with the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to answer questions about past secrets of its nuclear work within several months.
The Vienna-based IAEA will issue a report in mid-November.
Burns said a clean bill of health from the IAEA alone would not spare Iran from exposure to stiffer U.N. penalties over its failure to create confidence that it was enriching uranium only to generate electricity, as it insists, not yield atom bombs.
"Our judgment is that if Iran has not suspended in the next couple of weeks, that's not sufficient, it will remain a refusal to meet Security Council requirements. That will be a highly relevant factor for us," he said.
"Our hope is the following: first, a third sanctions resolution will be passed as soon as possible. Second, we'd very much support seeing the EU go forward with (its own) sanctions. Third, major trading partners of Iran should reduce trade to show Iran that this is not business as usual."
Lavrov-Rice Consultations
Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday about diplomacy "aimed at resolving the Iranian nuclear problem".
The Kremlin, which argues harsher sanctions would push Iran into a dangerous corner, has tried to persuade Tehran with recent top-level visits to heed the international community and give a full account of its nuclear programme.
Iranian media said senior Iranian and IAEA negotiators completed four days of talks on Thursday dealing with the critical transparency issue of Tehran's development of centrifuge enrichment machines. No details were given and there was no comment from IAEA.
Saudia Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states were willing to set up a consortium in a neutral country, such as Switzerland, to provide low-enriched uranium to Iran suitable for energy purposes only.
He said Iran was considering the offer, which in theory would obviate the need for Tehran to master sensitive enrichment know-how itself, easing bomb-proliferation fears.
Iran has previously been open to such consortium proposals only if based on its soil, mistrusting restrictive foreign sources for supply of nuclear materials.
Iran has ignored three Security Council resolutions, two with modest sanctions attached, demanding it shelve enrichment.
The Islamic Republic says it wants nuclear-generated electricity, while Western powers suspect a disguised effort to refine uranium to the high degree suitable for bombs.
Tension over Iran's nuclear activities has helped catapult oil prices to record highs of over $90 a barrel in recent days.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards commander warned the United States on Wednesday that it would find itself in a "quagmire deeper than Iraq" if it attacked the Islamic Republic.
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