Six powers have different approaches to new sanctions against Iran - source

VIENNA, April 23. /TASS/. Six world powers (comprising five permanent UN member states - Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France and China - and Germany) have revealed different approaches to how the UN Security Council can re-impose sanctions against Iran if the country fails to fulfil the commitments it undertook on control over its nuclear programme, several diplomatic sources in the Western delegations told TASS on Thursday. Thus, according to a media note published by the U.S. Department of State, the political agreements reached by Iran and the P5+1 (six world powers) envisage that a special mechanism for solving disputable issues should be created. "If an issue of significant non-performance cannot be resolved through that process, then all previous UN sanctions could be re-imposed," the document reads. "Unanimity does not exist in the issues related to a necessary superstructure for this tool as well as to the principles of its work," the diplomatic source said specifying that the matter is whether "the commission will make a decision either by the majority of participants or by consensus." Some of the negotiators doubt the very necessity for setting up an agency that will just duplicate the UN Security Council’s functions in the sphere of control over Iran’s nuclear programme, the source said. The information has not been officially confirmed yet. Earlier in the day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, a delegate to talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, told reporters in Moscow that the process of possible re-imposition of sanctions against Iran should not be automatic. "If any partners at talks pose a question on the possibility of returning to sanctions against Iran in a hypothetic situation of its failure to fulfil its commitments, then there should be no automatism in this process," the diplomat said. The decision on this should be taken in accordance with the procedures of the UN Security Council, in other words through the voting in the Security Council and by adopting a respective resolution, he added. Iran and P5+1 group (Russia, US, UK, China, France and Germany) reached a breakthrough agreement in Switzerland’s Lausanne on April 2 on containing Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for gradual sanctions relief. The deadline for coordinating the final agreement is June 30. Read more