Bolton pushes for "vigorous" UN response to Iran

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (Reuters) U S Ambassador John Bolton said the U N Security Council should issue a ''vigorous response'' to Iran's nuclear ambitions or the United States might have to consider other steps.

But divisions persist among the five permanent council members, with China, and to a lesser extent Russia, calling for continued negotiations with Iran and apprehensive about putting the issue on the council's agenda for the first time.

''We're going to press for as vigorous a response in the council as we can get and hope that that gets the Iranians' attention,'' Bolton said, told reporters yesterday.

''If the Iranians do not back off from their continued aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons, we'll have to make a decision of what the next step will be,'' he said.

On Wednesday, Nicholas Burns, the U S undersecretary of State, told a congressional committee that if U N action failed, ''it's going to be incumbent upon our allies around the world, and interested countries, to show that they are willing to act.'' Ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China meet again on Friday to work out a statement the Western powers hope will be adopted by the 15 Security Council members next week. But Bolton said he ''long ago stopped predicting timing in the council.'' The United States, Britain and France would like to ratchet up pressure if Iran does not comply with resolutions of the 35-nation governing board of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U N nuclear watchdog.

Still, comments from Russia and China indicated an initial response from the U N Security Council would be a mild one.

In Beijing, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said, ''There is still room for cooperation'' and ''we support the European Union and Russian engagement with Iran.'' But the main European negotiators, Germany, France and Britain, have refused to talk to Iran until it suspends uranian-enrichment activities they suspect are a cover for bomb making. Oil-rich Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes.

Britain, diplomats said, proposed that the council's statement should ask for a report from the IAEA within 14 days on whether Iran had made any progress in complying with its requests.

But Russia's UN Ambassador Andrei Denisov said 14 days was too short and warned that the controversy should not ''spin out of control of the IAEA.'' On Wednesday, the director of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, sent a February 27 report on Iran's nuclear activities to Security Council members, thereby clearing the way for the council to take up the issue.

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