United Nations: The UN Security Council has given Iran 30 days to stop uranium enrichment. However, the agreement is not legally binding. It was passed unanimously ahead of Thursday's meeting of foreign ministers of the five member nations.
Meanwhile Iran maintains its stand that its nuclear programme is being developed for peaceful purposes. It has refused to stop its nuclear activities.
The 15-member council approved a statement that will ask the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency to report within 30 days on Iran's compliance with the demands to stop enriching Uranium.
It took almost three weeks of contentious discussions at the United Nations and in the Capitals of five veto-wielding permanent members of the Council and last minute talk between American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to reach an agreement on the statement.
By the time the statement was finalised, Britain and France, who had drafted the original tough statement, had pulled most of the teeth out of it in face of stiff opposition from Russia and China who wanted to ensure that it cannot be used as pretext by a member or group of members to take action against Iran, including imposition of sanction, without the approval of the Council.
But western diplomats said it retains enough muscle and sends a strong signal to Tehran to stop defying international community and meet its obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to which it is a party.
Asked what action they plan to take in case IAEA reports non-compliance, ambassadors told reporters the issue would be discussed at the Berlin meeting of ministers of five permanent members of the Council --- the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China and Germany. They do not want to preempt their decision, they said.
Diplomats said to win support of Russia and China, Washington, London and Paris agreed to remove the language which would have linked the Iranian programme to threat to international peace and security which Moscow and Beijing feared, could be used to justify imposition of sanction without an explicit Council authorisation.
With PTI inputs
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