Russia moves toward backing sanctions against Iran

Just when it seemed that international efforts to convince Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program were failing comes word that Russia was dissatisfied with Tehran's level of cooperation and might be willing to support sanctions in the future. Speaking to the press following a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just outside Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country did not rule out the possibility that sanctions could be necessary to convince Iran to stop trying to develop nuclear weaponry, according to the Reuters international news service. Lavrov said reports from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran did not appear to be close to developing such weapons at this time. "The reports that the IAEA director-general publishes on a regular basis contain very precise assessments that do not give reason for any sort of alarm," Lavrov said. "But that does not mean that we are satisfied with Iranian actions. What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, systematic, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away." U.S. officials have been trying to convince the UN Security Council to agree to impose severe international sanctions on Iran's Islamic government, with which it has exchanged threatening dialogue over the past few years. Iran has threatened to attack Israel, a close U.S. ally, and has been involved in sharp public exchanges with both countries over the years since the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But both Russia and China will have to agree before the Security Council can impose new sanctions on Iran. "As President Medvedev has said, sanctions rarely work, but situations can arise when they are unavoidable, and we do not rule out that such a situation may arise in relation to Iran," Lavrov said, according to a Reuters report citing the Interfax news agency.

North Korea's high-stakes nuclear gamesmanship

What, exactly, does North Korea have to gain by continuing to violate UN Security Council resolutions and baiting the United States into a confrontation on nuclear development? That's the question today after Pyongyang announced it would begin enriching uranium as an addition to its known plutonium-enrichment program unless UN sanctions were lifted, according to the New York Times. North Korea said it also would conduct additional nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests if the UN did not apologize for the Security Council's April 13 condemnation of its most recent missile test and threat to tighten economic sanctions, which it said it considered "a declaration of war." Pyongyang has managed to exact some concessions from Washington, including high-level dialogue and shipments of food for its impoverished people, with earlier threats, but it is hard to see what Pyongyang wants now. North Korea was impoverished by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which cut its international trade lifeline, and has been depending on shipments of food from the West to feed its people. Of course, the billions of dollars it is pouring into its weapons research would feed a lot of people if redirected into domestic programs. Instead, the North denounced the Security Council as “a tool for the U.S. highhanded and arbitrary practices” and refused to acknowledge its continuing activities, which the United States believes includes helping Syria with its nuclear research. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Fred Lash, said Wednesday that the Security Council resolution was “balanced and appropriate.” “We certainly call on North Korea, as we have in the past, to uphold its commitments” under a Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement of six-party talks and a 2006 Security Council imposing sanctions, the Times said. “We remain committed to achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, hopefully through the six-party talks,” Lash said. “We urge them, as we always do, to return to the table.”

Hard to see what negotiations with Iran can accomplish

It probably can't hurt, but it's hard to see what further negotiations can possibly accomplish given the state of relations between the United States and Iran. The word from Washington is that the United States will, for the first time, take part in talks between Iran, the European Union and other U.N. Security Council members over Tehran's nuclear program, according to the Cable News Network (CNN). According to the U.S. State Department, the Obama administration has asked the EU to invite Iran to new negotiations, in which Washington has previously refused to participate, CNN said. "If Iran accepts, we hope this will be an occasion to seriously engage Iran of how to break the logjam of recent years and work in a cooperative manner to resolve the outstanding international concerns about its nuclear program," said Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman. But Iran has repeatedly refused previous Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium, which Tehran claims is needed to fuel nuclear power plants. The United States accuses Tehran of secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon, a claim the UN is still unable to resolve. The decision to enter the talks is seen as a further move by the new Obama administration to engage the Iran diplomatically after nearly three decades without formal diplomatic ties. But whether regimes like Iran and North Korea can afford to be more involved with the West is an open question, because such involvement brings with it a host of international responsibilities that those those countries don't seem to be mature enough to live up to.