U.S. aides pressured China on Iran
WASHINGTON — Senior US officials traveled to China two weeks before President Barack Obama’s trip there to pressure Beijing to further isolate Iran, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Senior National Security Council aides Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader warned Chinese officials of severe consequences if Beijing did not join other countries in condemning Iran for ignoring UN resolutions and building a secret uranium enrichment plant, the Post said.
The US officials told the Chinese that Israel considers Iran’s suspect nuclear program an “existential issue and that countries that have an existential issue don’t listen to other countries,” a senior administration official told the newspaper.
Bader and Ross namely warned their Chinese counterparts that Israel could bomb Iran, triggering a regional conflict, raising oil prices, hampering China’s oil supplies but also possibly encouraging further nuclear proliferation, the official added.
The pressure has yielded results, with Beijing informing Washington it would endorse a US-backed statement criticizing Iran’s nuclear activities, according to the Post.
The statement was part of a draft resolution that could be taken up during a two-day meeting of the UN atomic watchdog’s board of governors that began Thursday in Vienna.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany tabled the measure to be put to a vote by the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran has so far refused to respond to a proposal that would see Russia enrich the uranium needed to fuel a nuclear research reactor in Tehran in return for confidence-building gestures.
Under the terms of the deal, Iran must ship out most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium for further processing by Russia.
But Tehran is reluctant to let go of its uranium, and has proposed a simultaneous exchange of fuel inside Iran instead.
The Post said Washington’s pressure on Beijing aimed to get the Chinese giant to back sanctions against the Islamic republic if Tehran rejects the uranium enrichment deal.
China has long been opposed to slapping sanctions on Iran, its second biggest supplier of oil. The IAEA meeting is largely focused on Iran’s nuclear activities and its refusal to accept the uranium supply deal hammered out by the UN nuclear watchdog’s outgoing chief, Mohamed ElBaradei. (AFP)
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