By Xinhua
Washington : The US is drafting a new sanction resolution against Iran over its nuclear programme, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“What we’re doing is working on the elements of a resolution,” McCormack said Tuesday at a briefing.
The US is holding ongoing discussions with the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Germany, McCormack said.
“We hope that these meetings and any intervening discussions will move the ball forward. The process hasn’t moved as quickly as we would have liked, but that is par for the course with the Security Council resolutions,” McCormack said.
Pushed by the US, two UN Security Council resolutions have been passed to punish Iran for its defiance of UN warnings against its nuclear ambitions.
Washington has called a meeting of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany for Sep 21 in Washington to discuss a new UN draft resolution on sanctions against Iran.
Germany, however, preferred to “give Iran a chance to recover the international community’s lost confidence in its nuclear programme”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, reached a deal with Tehran last month to bring transparency to Iran’s nuclear programme.
“If Iran is ready to do this then I think we can spare ourselves future sanctions debates,” the German Foreign Ministry said last week.
The US has accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear programme, which Iran has denied. Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.