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The United States has threatened to bring to vote in the United Nations Security Council a tough Franco-British draft resolution requiring Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme even if Russia and China -- the countries opposed to its language -- do not come on board.
The threat was issued by American Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who also claimed that Washington was still seeking unanimity on the issue.
Bolton's remarks came after the 15 Security Council members held prolonged discussions at the British UN mission yesterday but failed even to touch the core elements of the draft.
They cannot extend the negotiations endlessly, Bolton said.
Coming out of the meeting, ambassadors said they were reviewing the draft paragraph by paragraph but admitted that core elements and contentious issues were not discussed.
Bolton had wanted the resolution to be adopted prior to a dinner meeting being hosted by American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tomorrow in New York at which she has invited Foreign Ministers of Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue.
But diplomats said the option of a resolution before the meeting now looked impossible.
However, British and French diplomats said they expected the resolution to be brought to vote sometime next week. But the Council will meet tomorrow ahead of the dinner meeting in last minute effort to find the elusive compromise.
Russia and China, who have veto power along with the US Britain and France, and several other members oppose the invocation of Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which makes the resolution mandatory as also branding the Iranian uranium enrichment programme a threat to international peace and security which could trigger sanctions or even military action against Iran at a later stage.
Diplomats said there is a strong possibility of Britain and France circulating a new draft in the light of discussions but London and Paris insisted they would not compromise on invocation of Chapter 7.
The draft resolution, which the Western nations are pressing, calls on Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme as also construction of a heavy water nuclear reactor, which could be used to produce weapon grade uranium.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed on searching for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue during his discussions with Rice over telephone on the draft, Russian officials said.
The dinner meeting was expected to discuss long-term strategy dealing with Iran but now that the British-French resolution has run into trouble, the main priority at the talks would be to find a compromise language.
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes but the United States and its allies suspect that Tehran has a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.