UNITED NATIONS, March 23 (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council is preparing for a Saturday vote on a draft resolution in response to Iran's non-compliance with sanctions levied in December by the panel. The December measure was answering Tehran's refusal to comply with earlier resolutions calling for a halt to its uranium-enrichment program.
Sponsors of the draft resolution, first circulated last week, rewrote it late Thursday, they said, to incorporate some amendments offered by Indonesia, Qatar and South Africa. They plan to discuss the measure further Friday and vote Saturday.
However, South Africa's ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, this month's president of the council, said his initial reading led him to believe the amendments offered by his nation and Qatar were not taken on board.
The "EU3," the European Union's Britain, France and Germany, sponsors of the resolution, worked with China, Russia and the United States, which then was dubbed by some as the "EU3 plus 3," to come up with the original draft. All but Germany are permanent, veto-holding members of the council. Germany's elected term on the panel expired Dec. 31, 2006.
The Europeans are particularly keen on seeing a halt to what the council feels is Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon, but which Tehran says is only for nuclear energy. Europe feels vulnerable because of Iran's believed capability to reach the continent with a nuclear-tipped missile when it has developed such a weapon.
Because of antagonism between Washington and Tehran, the United States appeared unwilling to publicly take a lead role in drafting the measure.
Indonesia, Qatar and South Africa offered their own amendments.
The December resolution was passed unanimously and imposed limited sanctions on Iran, ordering a halt to materials and technology being supplied to Iran that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. The measure also froze assets of a dozen people and a handful of entities related to the programs.
The draft before the panel deplores Iran's failure to comply with earlier measures, as reported by Director General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He recently proposed Iran suspend enrichment and for the council in kind to suspend sanctions, known as the "double suspension" proposal.
The draft resolution, as it stands now, expresses the council's determination "to give effect to its decisions by adopting appropriate measures to persuade Iran to comply" with the earlier resolutions and requirements of the IAEA "and also to constrain Iran's development of such sensitive technologies in support of its nuclear and missile programs."
Tehran's answer to the first sanctions resolution was to expand its enrichment program.
The new draft says the council would suspend implementation of measures "if and for so long as Iran suspends all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development as verified by the IAEA, to allow for negotiations in good faith in order to reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome."
While Pretoria's amendment endorsed ElBaradei's double-suspension proposal, it called for a "time out" for the council to suspend sanctions for a 90-day period for political negotiations, without Tehran suspending enrichment.
"It would be totally perverse," Britain's ambassador, Emyr Jones Perry, said Thursday.
On Wednesday, he said every time the council allowed Tehran to supposedly engage in negotiations, "Iran then came around and said the pause was terribly useful because 'We were able to develop and enhance our nuclear capability.'"
Qatar's proposal for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and a ban on missiles to deliver the weapons, endorsed by Indonesia, "risks seriously obfuscating the intent" of the resolution, the London envoy said.
France's ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, saw the amendments in three categories. "Some of them could give more clarity to the text (of the draft resolution) and could improve it," he said. "Some others are more difficult."
Other amendments, he said, were not consistent with the Security Council approach, the approach of the December resolution. "An incremental approach, an approach based on the idea that more pressure on Iran is needed, a pressure that we hope will bring Iran back to the negotiation table," La Sabliere said. "In order to have Iran responding, you have to increase pressure."
