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UN Security Council to vote on Iran sanction Wednesday

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-09 02:03
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UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council is to vote on a draft resolution on Wednesday morning to impose sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear work, the council president said Tuesday.

"The co-sponsors of the draft resolution on Iran have announced that the resolution would be submitted to the vote tomorrow morning," Mexico's UN ambassador Claude Heller, the council president for this month, told reporters here.

The council president, who spoke after another round of informal consultations among the 15 council members, said that Turkey and Brazil had asked the council to have "a substantive debate" on the Iranian nuclear issue.

"We had this exchange this morning, and at the same time we took decision -- by all the members of the Security Council -- to have a private session this afternoon," Heller said.

Meanwhile, Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, also confirmed that on Wednesday there would be a council vote on a "strong resolution."

Turkey and Brazil last month reached a deal with Tehran to deposit 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium in return for 120 kilograms of high-enriched uranium fuel for a research reactor.

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Turkey and Brazil, both non-permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council, had hoped that their deal with Iran would spare the need for sanctions, saying that it opened additional channels for diplomacy.

The two council members, who have no veto powers, had called for an open "political debate" on the broader Iranian nuclear issue before a vote on new sanctions. But the council only decided to meet in private sessions.

The resolution, if adopted, would impose the fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran since 2006. It would build on existing measures and expand the breadth and reach of UN sanctions on Iran by creating new categories of sanctions.

The resolution, however, would also take note of Turkey and Brazil's efforts "that could serve as a confidence building measure."