(Associated Press) - Britain said Thursday it expects a draft U.N. resolution on Iran to be introduced in the Security Council early next week and diplomats said it will seek sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere had said Tuesday he hoped to circulate a draft by the end of the week. But France, Britain and Germany, who have led negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program, were still discussing the text with the United States on Thursday, and had not yet shown it to Russia and China, reports Trend.
"My expectation is that sometime early next week we'll put a resolution down," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said "we're consulting on it and I expect within a day or two we'll have something to circulate more broadly in the council."
European Union foreign ministers said after a meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday that they have no choice but to back diplomatic talks at the United Nations about sanctions on Iran.
The ministers backed a decision by the U.N.'s five permanent Security Council members the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France and Germany to pursue limited sanctions on Tehran while keeping the door open to future talks.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said earlier this month that they would seek measures under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows nonmilitary sanctions.
The six countries offered Iran a package of economic incentives and political rewards in June if it agreed to consider a long-term moratorium on enrichment and commit to a freeze on uranium enrichment before talks to discuss details of their package.
But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly and defiantly said his country would continue enrichment, and is not intimidated by the possibility of sanctions.
The United States has called for broad sanctions, such as a total ban on missile and nuclear technology sales, while the Russians and Chinese back prohibitions of selected items as a first step.