US and allies aim to impose 'sanctions of the willing'

Washington: The United States and its European allies are preparing to impose their own broad military and economic sanctions against Iran if Russia and China baulk at voting for a tough new resolution at the United Nations, according to US and European officials.

The breakaway diplomacy would impose a kind of 'sanctions of the willing' on Iran, said a Western diplomat, playing off the 'coalition of the willing' that was mobilised after diplomacy at the United Nations failed to produce support for military action in Iraq.

The State Department on Friday hosted all-day talks with four other permanent members of the Security Council - Britain, China, France and Russia - plus Germany to try to hash out the parameters of a new resolution on the eve of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York.

In talks the State Department described as 'serious and constructive,' the six agreed to proceed, following months of delays, with a third UN resolution punishing Iran. But deep differences remain on both substance and timing between the United States and Europeans on one side and Russia and China on the other, said officials from several delegations.

Tightening noose

The Bush administration is pushing for the world's top powers to impose punitive measures that could include sanctioning branches of Iran's military - such as parts of the Revolutionary Guards' Al Quds Force - rather than individual military leaders of those units, as in past resolutions, US and Western officials said. The goal is to pressure entities that have allegedly participated in weapons of mass destruction programmes, the sources said.

Washington is also looking to curtail Iran's ability to import military equipment, such as Russian air defence systems. It also wants to tighten the economic noose on banks and companies connected to acquisition of suspicious military materiel. And it wants to strengthen the travel ban that prevents Iranian officials from travelling, vacationing and other activities abroad, the officials said.

"We want to close all loopholes and suck the oxygen out of the room," said a US official. Winning agreement from all five veto-wielding members of the Security Council, however, will be a "Sisyphean undertaking," he said.