The US, Britain and France all warned Iran in the Security Council on Thursday
that time was running out for negotiations over its nuclear program, but stopped
short of drawing the red lines that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has
demanded.
The West “will not engage in an endless process of negotiations
that fail to produce any results,” AFP quoted US Ambassador Susan Rice as saying
at a Security Council meeting on Iran sanctions.
“We must therefore
remain clear and united in seeking resolution of the international community’s
concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program... Time is
wasting.”
Three rounds of negotiations since April between Iran and the
P5+1 – the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain – have led
nowhere.
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said that while the West was
asking Iran to negotiate, “Iran is not negotiating.”
Rice, in an NBC
interview on Sunday, came out against setting red lines, saying the US “bottom
line” is that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon “and we will take no option
off the table to ensure that it does not acquire a nuclear weapon, including the
military option.”
In that interview, Rice said there was still “time and
space for the pressure we are mounting, which is unprecedented in terms of sanctions, to still yield
results.”
Britain’s UN envoy Mark Lyall Grant told the Security Council
that Iran was “at a crossroads,” and that it must decide “soon” whether or not
it wants to be a responsible member of the international community.
“It
can support the oppressive regime in Syria in suppressing freedom, or it can
play a constructive role in its region. It can be an exporter of terrorism or a
responsible member of the international community. But it must make these
choices soon,” Lyall Grant said, without setting any deadline.
Lyall
Grant’s comments came shortly after the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy
Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, admitted to the London-based Al-Hayat
newspaper that his country was putting out misinformation to counter British
spying.
Abbasi-Davani said in the interview that Iran falsified
information to mislead foreign intelligence agencies such as MI6 “in order to
protect our nuclear sites” and Iran’s economic interests.
“Sometimes we
show weaknesses where we are not weak.
Sometimes we show strengths where
we are not strong. Later this became evident in talks with the IAEA,” he said,
claiming that Iranian misinformation had made its way into discussions of the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
One Israeli official said that
Jerusalem had no doubt that the Iranians have adopted a deliberate policy of
deceiving the international community for more than a decade.
“Their
deception is well known,” the official said, adding that what came as a surprise
was Abbasi-Davani’s candid admission.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud
Barak arrived in New York Thursday evening on the tail end of a semi-private
Rosh Hashana visit to the US where he reportedly met with Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel, former chief of staff to US President Barack Obama.
Barak is
expected to hold a number of meetings in New York with leaders coming to the
city to take part in the UN General Assembly meeting. Obama will deliver his
address to the UN on Tuesday, and Netanyahu will speak to the body on
Thursday.
While Netanyahu and Obama will miss each other in New York, it
was not immediately clear whether a meeting might be arranged between Obama and
Barak.