By DPA
Vienna : Differences among the member-states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over Iran’s nuclear issue led to Western nations Tuesday dropping a draft resolution urging Iran to cooperate fully with the UN agency, diplomats in Vienna said.
“There will be no resolution,” a European diplomat said, confirming earlier comments by other Western diplomats present at the week-long meeting of the IAEA.
The draft of the resolution – the first in two years – aimed at reaffirming the “critical importance of a complete and correct statement by Iran of all its past and present nuclear activities.”
Russia and China, which had supported the UN Security Council resolution adopted Monday, seemed satisfied that the move put enough pressure on Iran to comply with the UN demands.
Members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) also made it very clear that they were not supporting any resolution on Iran at this point.
“We don’t think there is sentiment for a draft resolution in our opinion that will really damage the environment of cooperation and confidence-building that had prevailed between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the agency,” Cuba’s chief delegate Norma Coicochea Estenoz told journalists.
Monday, the UN Security Council adopted a third resolution against Iran, expanding travel bans on individuals involved in Iran’s nuclear programme, as well as banning the sale of so-called dual-use items, which could be used in a nuclear programme.
The Security Council also demanded Iran to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment drive, a demand Tehran had ignored in the past, maintaining that UN resolutions had no legal basis.
Iran was referred to the Security Council two years ago by the IAEA board for violating its obligations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Western nations fear that the country, which hid its nuclear programme from the IAEA for almost two decades, is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran strongly denies.