“We have reached agreement on a strong draft with the cooperation of both Russia and China,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, without giving any details of the pact. “We plan to circulate that draft resolution to the entire Security Council today. And let me say, Mr. Chairman, I think this announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.”
The agreement was reached by the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council — plus Germany. Russia and China have been the most resistant to the American-led efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran…
The announcement came just a day after Iran said it would ship what is believed to be roughly half of its nuclear fuel to Turkey for further enrichment, in what appeared to be a bid to undercut the American efforts to bring along China and Russia. The offer resembled an accord made with the West last October that fell apart when Iran backtracked.
Mrs. Clinton said the new offer would still leave Iran “in clear violation of its international obligations” because it “is continually amassing newly enriched uranium.” She also criticized what she called the “amorphous timeline for the removal” of the low enriched uranium. Reading the terms, she said, “that could take months of further negotiation and that is just not acceptable to us and to our partners.”
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