United Nations Security Council members will today review a revised draft of a UN resolution to impose new sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
Although major powers said their proposed text was a final version, changes are still likely before a vote that British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said was planned for tomorrow.
The draft resolution rejects nearly all the amendments from South Africa that would have stripped the text of most provisions on weapons and financial bans. But the negotiators provided a requested explanation of why each name on a list of 28 Iranian individuals, companies and institutions should be subject to an assets freeze.
South Africa's main objection is that the new text would impose penalties outside of the nuclear sphere. Pretoria also proposed a 90-day "time out" in imposing the sanctions, which Mr Jones Parry said would have rewarded "noncompliance by actually lifting the obligation and that would have been totally perverse."
US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said amendments had to be consistent with the "philosophy of this resolution," which was drafted by Germany and the five permanent council members with veto rights - Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States.
The resolution demands Iran halt uranium enrichment that can be used to build a bomb or for peaceful purposes. The United States and other nations suspect Iran may be developing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian programme, which Tehran denies.