Iran holds talks with Beijing after China backs US call for sanctions
Tehran's leading nuclear negotiator arrives in China after Beijing agrees to begin drafting UN resolution
Hillary Clinton says the permanent UN security council members are 'unified' on sanctions talks. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters
Iran's most senior nuclear official today arrived in China for talks, a day after Beijing agreed to begin drafting a UN resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme.
Yesterday, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the five permanent security council members, plus Germany, "continue to be unified" in talks on sanctions.
"There will be a great deal of further consultation, not only among the [six], but other members of the security council and other [UN] member nations during the next weeks," Clinton added.
Officials with knowledge of the talks said an agreement to begin drafting a security council resolution had been reached in a telephone call involving representatives of the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.
The negotiations will now move to New York, where diplomats will hammer out a sanctions package. On Tuesday, the US president, Barack Obama, said he hoped the UN would pass a sanctions resolution within weeks.
China refused to comment on the sanctions today as the Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, arrived in Beijing for a prearranged meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi.
"Your visit this time is very important," Jiechi told Jalili before the talks. "We attach great importance to China's relations with Iran."
Jalili agreed that the relationship between Iran and China was "very important", adding: "It is very important for our two countries to co-operate on all the issues."
Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, yesterday said there was a sense of urgency about applying pressure to Iran.
"There are some very intense conversations happening at the United Nations right now that we're able to make some real progress on," he said.
Mark Toner, a US state department spokesman, confirmed that the telephone conference had taken place and said the US had been represented by the number three at the state department, William Burns.
The agreement came after a similar conference call a week ago, in which China participated after weeks of stalling.
Burton said the White House was confident it would be able to work with China to apply "meaningful" pressure.
Bringing Beijing to the negotiating table is seen as a diplomatic breakthrough in Washington, but the degree of Obama's success in winning the argument will be measured by the final terms of the UN resolution and how long it takes to agree.
China is in the process of changing its delegation at the UN, a move that could delay negotiations further. Some officials said they expected the security council talks to drag on until June.
The US had originally sought broad sanctions against Iran's energy sector. Russia and China have said the measures are targeted against individuals and institutions directly linked with Iran's nuclear and missile programme.
Three rounds of sanctions have already been imposed on Iran. The US claims Tehran is covertly seeking nuclear weapon capability, while Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says the country's nuclear industry is for peaceful power generation.
Negotiations over sanctions have taken months in the past, and although Obama has said he would like to see a deal this spring, they are likely to be protracted again.
Following the revelation last September that Tehran had been building a covert uranium enrichment plant near Qom, and the collapse of a compromise deal under which Iran would export the bulk of its enriched uranium stockpile for processing, the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, had agreed the need for new sanctions.
But until yesterday, Beijing had held out against US-led pressure to begin drafting a resolution.
In a further sign of improving relations between the US and China, Beijing announced today that the president, Hu Jintao, would attend a summit on nuclear security in the US this month.
Until the announcement by the foreign ministry, it had not been clear whether Hu would shun the event, which will discuss both disarmament and ways to reduce the threat of rogue nations or terrorists gaining access to nuclear weapons.
This was because of Chinese unhappiness over US arms sales to Taiwan and Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama.
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