UN: The United States and its European allies have failed to persuade China and Russia to back a United Nations resolution demanding that Iran comply with requests to halt some nuclear activities.
A meeting in New York of foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the UN security council - the US, France, Britain, China and Russia - and Germany ended without agreement.
Officials said yesterday, however, that the six countries have agreed to present Iran with a set of options, including the threat of sanctions if it defies international opinion and the promise of benefits if Tehran complies with requests to halt part of its nuclear programme.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the package of incentives and sanctions in Brussels next week and, if approved, the options will be presented to Tehran.
Russia and China said they agreed with western countries that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons but they opposed invoking Chapter Seven of the UN charter, which could authorise economic sanctions and eventually pave the way for military action.
"I think they probably need another 10 days, 14 days, to get that resolution back up," said German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said that everyone agreed that Iran should suspend uranium enrichment and halt construction of a heavy-water reactor - activities that could lead to a nuclear weapons capability.
"The discussion tonight was about including this in the resolution. The discussion tonight was also on the ways of presenting a set of both incentive and deterrent measures," he said.
Britain and France have sponsored a resolution invoking Chapter Seven, which has the support of the US and EU countries, including Ireland.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijing rejected the threat of force implicit in the resolution.
"The Iran nuclear dispute is at a crucial junction. We hope relevant sides can show flexibility, restraint and calmness in order to create favourable conditions for the resumption of talks.
"We are in favour of a diplomatic solution. We are never in favour of the wanton use of force or the threat of force," he said.
European diplomats believe it would be better to pass a weak resolution backed by all permanent members of the security council than to be divided over a stronger measure.
President George Bush said yesterday that he remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the stand-off with Iran and that he was confident military force would not be necessary. "The first option and the most important option is diplomacy," Mr Bush said. "I believe we can accomplish this through diplomacy."
Mr Bush was speaking a day after he received a letter from Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the first such communication between Tehran and Washington since 1979.
The letter did not address the nuclear issue directly but asked Mr Bush if US foreign policy was compatible with Christian principles. "There are prisoners in Guantánamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals. European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too.
"I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system.
"For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, ie the teachings of Jesus Christ . . . human rights and liberal values," Mr Ahmadinejad wrote.