U.S. Reaches Iran Sanctions Agreement With Russia and China

By PETER SPIEGEL

• MAY 18, 2010, 4:36 P.M. ET

WASHINGTON—The U.S. has reached an agreement with the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council on a sanctions regime against Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

Mrs. Clinton said the draft resolution, agreed to by long-resistant Russia and China, would be presented to the Security Council Tuesday.

The announcement—made at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—came a day after Turkey and Brazil announced a deal that would have allowed Iran to ship some nuclear fuel overseas for enrichment.

Western powers want to keep Iran from enriching uranium on its own soil, because it fears that fuel will end up being used for nuclear weapons, though Tehran says its nuclear program is nonmilitary. The latest enrichment deal is a weakened version of one that was negotiated in October but fell through after Iran's government didn't approve it.

There was no immediate, public reaction from Iranian officials late Tuesday to news of the deal.

The Security Council has passed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to suspend its nuclear-enrichment activities. The draft sanctions resolution agreed Tuesday by the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany would impose a conventional-arms import ban on Iran for the first time and calls on nations to board ships on the high seas to search for contraband items headed to or from Iran, according to a senior U.S. official.

If the measure passes, Iran will no longer be able to import eight categories of conventional weapons, the official said. The Security Council has already imposed an arms export ban on Iran to keep it from supplying groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Major Powers Have Deal on Sanctions for Iran