Translated material
Devil's Advocate
South Africa postpones new UN sanctions against Iran
Russia, which has always advocated the most careful and balanced sanctions against Iran, unexpectedly found an ally in South Africa, the current chairman of the UN Security Council. South Africa's permanent representative to the UN, Dumisani Khumalo, confirmed yesterday that his country has made amendments to the draft resolution already agreed upon by the permanent members of the UN Security Council represented by Russia, the USA, China, Great Britain and France. Pretoria wants to soften the sanctions and include in the text of the resolution a clause on a 90-day delay after the adoption of the document. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that Moscow considers many of South Africa's amendments to be "fully justified." “We will strive to reach agreement in the UN Security Council,” he emphasized.It was assumed that today the UN Security Council will adopt a new resolution. However, new consultations are now coming, which will give Iran additional time for diplomatic maneuvers. The already agreed upon project was supposed to tighten the sanctions imposed on Tehran in December 2006 - it introduced a ban on the export of weapons from Iran and expanded the list of Iranian firms, organizations and individuals whose financial assets are subject to freezing. The list includes high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's state bank, Sepah.
The tightening of sanctions has alerted Pretoria. Mr Khumalo said his country's position was that sanctions against Iran should be "limited to nuclear materials and technology and not extend to other areas, as the draft resolution suggests." South Africa called for an end to the arms embargo and for the IRGC and Sepah Bank to be exempted from sanctions.
It is noteworthy that the proposals of South Africa, which had not previously been particularly active in discussions on Iran, came to the table of the Security Council on the very day that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov was visiting Pretoria. At the end of last year, it was Russia that managed to soften the text of resolution 1737 on Iran as much as possible. But in recent weeks, Moscow has stepped up its criticism of Tehran for its stubborn refusal to halt uranium enrichment. And so South Africa seemed to take over from Russia the role of Iran’s chief lawyer.
In recent days, the White House has actively sought to present the Russian-American partnership on the Iranian nuclear issue as a fait accompli . Yesterday, the New York Times published an article under the catchy headline “Russia Gives Iran an Enrichment Ultimatum.” It claimed that Russia “has already informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel supplies for the nearly completed Bushehr nuclear power plant until Iran suspends uranium enrichment.” As for the references to the fact that the Iranian side owes Moscow money for the construction of a nuclear power plant , this, according to the New York Times, is nothing more than the official “public” version.
Yesterday, the sensational information of the New York Times was denied by the Russian Security Council. In a statement from his press service, the newspaper’s statements were called untrue: “The resolution of Iran’s nuclear problem and the completion of the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr are not linked by the Russian side.” Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Hosseini-Tash said the same thing yesterday. It was he who was announced by the New York Times as the recipient of the Russian ultimatum.
True, Iranian state television yesterday called Russia an “unreliable partner” in light of the latest delays in the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, allegedly caused by “Russian policy of delay.” “The double standards of Russian officials in the Iranian nuclear program prove that Russia is not a reliable partner in the energy field,” the television commentary asserted.
The head of the press service of the general contractor for the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, JSC Atomstroyexport, Irina Esipova, emphasized yesterday that “the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr has not stopped and work is underway at the site.” In a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, she confirmed “the lack of financial receipts, namely budget payments, from the Iranian side.” Last year's Russian-Iranian agreement stipulated that Russia would supply Iran with nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear power plant by the end of March, and the facility itself would be launched in September. However, there is already at least a two-month lag behind the agreed schedule. “Foreign currency payments from the Iranian side have not been received into the accounts of Atomstroyexport since mid-January 2007,” noted Vremya Novostey’s interlocutor.
Failure to schedule concerns not only fuel supplies for nuclear power plants. “The two-month delay in payments resulted in shifts in the supply of equipment and in the schedule for sending additional specialists to the Bushehr NPP site. Meanwhile, the construction of a nuclear power plant is a constantly changing process. First, some workers should be functionally occupied in construction, then others and others should arrive to replace them. This process involves performing physical tests on the equipment. We are talking about the step-by-step implementation of a very large project,” Ms. Esipova recalled. Atomstroyexport also called reports from Western diplomats that a “large number” of Russian technicians, engineers and other specialists have allegedly already left the nuclear power plant under construction in Bushehr “groundless.”