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Security Council members differ over Iran
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-06 09:15

The debate is so important in part because the Security Council is unique among U.N. institutions as the lone body with the power to impose sanctions or other punitive measures, deploy peacekeeping missions, and grant or deny legitimacy to military action.

And though its resolutions sometimes go ignored or unheeded, there is also a symbolic shaming that goes along with bringing a country before a body whose mandate is to maintain international peace and security.

In Iran's case, the council's options include issuing a public statement without imposing any action or adopting a resolution demanding Iran stop its activities and threatening punishment if it does not. The punishment could include an oil embargo, asset freeze and travel ban.

Standing in the way of any such action is China, which has been blunt about its distaste for punitive measures.

"I think, as a matter of principle, China never supports sanctions as a way of exercising pressure because it is always the people that would be hurt," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said.

For at least a month, in the meantime, the council will not do anything publicly. According to the IAEA decision passed Saturday, the council must wait until the IAEA's Board of Governors meets again next month before considering what to do about Iran.

One precedent is North Korea, which wrangled with many of the same players in 1993 and 1994 over its nuclear program. Through early 1994, the United States pushed hard for the council to impose sanctions but ultimately agreed to drop the threat after North Korea agreed in separate negotiations to freeze its nuclear program.

While there had been months of behind-the-scenes debate in the council, its lone resolution came in May 1993, when it urged North Korea to reconsider its decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Colin Keating, an analyst who sat on the council at the time as New Zealand's ambassador, said diplomats hoped for a similar result with Iran, with most discussions about its program taking place outside the Security Council chamber.

"This is a process which everybody is focused on trying to get a particular outcome, and ultimately the passage of a resolution with sanctions is probably a failure of the exercise rather than a success," Keating said.

"This is going to be an ongoing process of many months and it's one in which there will be lots of swirling around and probably very few public meetings of the council and a lot of the action will take place off stage."

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