WASHINGTON — The U.S. administration will take up strategy for United Nations sanctions against Iran at a meeting tomorrow of senior officials from eight nations.
All the G8 countries — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia — will have senior officials at the State Department session, department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.
They will consider a proposed package of incentives, designed by Britain, France and Germany, to induce Iran to halt enrichment of uranium, a key ingredient in a nuclear weapons program.
A European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the inducements included a trade co-operation agreement between Iran and the European Union and an offer of fuel for its civilian nuclear reactors.
In Tokyo, U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said: “We hold the view that Iran needs to be brought to account and we would like to move to the UN Security Council after the November [International Atomic Energy Agency] board of governors’ meeting.
“But we’re open to all ideas that people have because one thing has become clear and that is that we all share — the G8 — the same end, the desire, and that is that Iran should be free of nuclear weapons and be transparent and let the international community have sufficient confidence that that is the case.”
Mr. Boucher said, “We’re going to hear from the Europeans on the work they’ve been doing on how to get the Iranians to comply.”
But, he added, “we are going to discuss with them further what to do in the Security Council if there’s agreement in November to refer it there.”
Short of votes in the council, the administration has been stymied in trying to punish Iran. The strategy now is to move against Iran if it does not stop its program before the IAEA meets in Vienna in late November.
