Iran:The US said yesterday Russia and China had been blocking tough UN sanctions against Iran for months and pledged a drive to impose them if Iran did not halt nuclear activity within two weeks.
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was "not worried at all" about broader sanctions over defiance of UN Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium.
Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state for political affairs, said China and Russia had been stalling a new UN Security Council resolution for about six months.
The five permanent powers on the Security Council plus Germany will meet in London today to weigh the scope for more sanctions. Increased US-Iranian sabre-rattling has raised fears of wider Middle East war.
Mr Burns, in Vienna for consultations with the UN nuclear watchdog director, said Iran was given a two-month grace period after the last UN resolution on March 24th to allow for further talks, but pressed ahead with enrichment anyway.
"Russia and China have been effectively blocking a third resolution since then," he told reporters. Moscow and Beijing, two of the five veto-holders on the council and both with big trade ties to Iran, have insisted on more time for diplomacy.
Western powers agreed in September to delay seeking harsher sanctions after Iran agreed a deal with the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to answer questions about past secrets of its nuclear work within several months.
The Vienna-based IAEA will issue a report in mid-November.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said US-allied Gulf Arab states were willing to set up a consortium in a neutral country, such as Switzerland, to provide low-enriched uranium to Iran suitable for energy purposes only.