U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2006)

U.S. Department of State

Conference Call on UN Sanctions Resolution 1737

R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs

Washington, DC
December 23, 2006

(12:30 p.m. EST)

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UNDER SECRETARY BURNS:

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I would just make a final point, then I'll be happy to go to your questions. A perspective. Chapter 7 is very significant. It's a big spotlight. It is going to be humiliating for Iran. I use that word advisedly. The Iranians have launched a pretty vigorous international campaign over the last few months to prevent this from happening. They've tried very hard to divide the U.S. from the EU-3 countries and in turn from Russia and China, and they did not want this to happen. This will allow -- this Chapter 7 resolution, it will allow countries and institutions that would not have considered their own sanctions separate from the UN to now consider them.

As we worked over the last 18 months to try to convince countries to be more vigorous on their own, using their own legal systems or institutions such as the European Union to take more vigorous action, the constant refrain to us was, well, we can't do that because the UN Security Council hasn't established a sanctions regime. That has now happened. That now opens the way for further action outside the Security Council by states that wish to send a more clear and a tougher message to the Iranians.

And in that respect, I remember about a year ago as we began to put together the P5 groups, the Russians and Chinese, and Secretary Rice had six meetings with the foreign ministers of those countries in 2006 leading up to this, there was a conventional wisdom, I think, that we weren't going to get Security Council sanctions a year ago today. And we have done it, and that in itself I think is a significant message to Iran that the Iranians are conducting themselves in such a way that the rest of the world is concerned enough to pass this resolution.

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QUESTION: Right. But even without Bushehr, I mean, this resolution -- the initial European draft -- called for, you know, an exemption for Bushehr but essentially, you know, would have barred all other even, I guess, legitimate nuclear trade with Iran. Everything else would have been barred except for Bushehr.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: As Secretary Rice said, I think she said earlier this week in some interview, she said, you know, if we had written this resolution alone we would have written a more tough-minded resolution, we would have exacted more vigorous sanctions against Iran. This is a process of 15 countries working together for two and a half months, and especially the five members of the perm five, and so there were necessary compromises that had to be made to get everyone on board. And we felt that in the end getting everybody on board and having this one unified message was a powerful signal to the Iranians.

But I won't hide the fact, Colum, that, you know, it was sometimes very frustrating to deal with the slow pace of these negotiations, with some of the barriers that were put up by some of the countries involved. And our advice to Russia and China is -- again, they tell us that they want to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability. We need to see more vigorous action by both of them. We'd like to see an end to the business as usual, the export credits that I mentioned, the military sales that are still going on. Russia has just announced that it's going to go forward with more missile sales, and we have been a longtime critic of those sales.

So there are differences among us and those differences are reflected -- were reflected in the negotiation. And yet I think we feel very strongly that having achieved this, this is a powerful message against Iran. They've never been under Chapter 7 sanctions and it now provides for a graduated set of stronger sanctions. So as Resolution 1696 foresaw, this one does as well, if you look toward the end of the resolution, if within 60 days ElBaradei confirms to us that Iran has not complied with the resolution, then the Council has an obligation to take stronger sanctions in the future, and perhaps some of the measures that are not in this one would be included in further resolutions. So on balance, we think this is a good step forward.

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QUESTION: Thanks, Ambassador. Can you elaborate first on reservations that China had with the nature of the sanctions?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: No, I can't. You'll have to ask the Chinese. I simply can't speak for the Chinese Government. I speak for my own government and I think I've spoken about our satisfaction with this step forward. We do think it's time for an end to business as usual, and in addition to these sanctions -- it wouldn't make much sense to put all of our eggs in the UN Security Council basket.

And in addition to what the Security Council has been able to do, and I read out the five significant parts of the resolution, the sanctions on Iran, we encourage other countries to take their own national measures. That's important, too, because outside -- I think there are about four countries in the world that defend Iran. I think Syria is one, Belarus is a second, and on occasion Cuba and Venezuela. But apart from the gang, that gang of four, everybody else in the world tells us that they want to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability. So if that's the case and that's the object of this sanctions exercise, then we need to see stronger action outside the Security Council to complement what the Security Council is doing.

OPERATOR: The next question comes from Josh Kurtman.

QUESTION: Yes. Hello?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Hello.

QUESTION: Yes. I was curious. Earlier this week, China's national oil corporation signed a $16 billion agreement with Iran related to liquid natural gas. Will that be covered under the sanctions? And if not, do you find it disconcerting that $16 billion is going into the Iranian treasury just as China votes with us on these sanctions?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: This particular resolution does not involve oil and gas sanctions, so I believe that the Chinese deal that we've read about would not -- would definitely not come under these particular sanctions. Our advice to countries is not to work with the Iranians on oil and gas, not to try to develop their fields and not to sign new contracts. We've had a longstanding opposition to that.

Our beef with the Iranians is threefold. First is the clear effort to develop a nuclear weapons program. Second is the fact that they're, in effect, a central banker funding Hezbollah, Hamas, PFLP General Command and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And third, they're a major human rights violator of their own people. And so our advice to countries like China is not to do business as usual.

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