Non-aligned states will back Iran's right to nuclear fuel production at a UN meeting this week, unmoved by US calls to join efforts to get Tehran to stop enriching uranium, diplomats said.
UN Security Council powers offered Iran a package of incentives last week and Washington has nudged Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) states to endorse it at a session of the International Atomic Energy Agency governing board. Iran is still considering the proposals.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted today as saying that Tehran will "soon" give its response to the package, but gave no precise timetable.
If the 15 NAM nations on the 35-member IAEA board backed the US calls, it would help Washington and the European Union deflect Iranian assertions it is being bullied by powerful countries bent on denying the Islamic state nuclear energy.
But diplomats from the non-aligned members said the group would reissue a declaration made in Malaysia on May 30th backing Iran's right to nuclear work.
"We won't make a new statement referring to the current (big power) proposal or make supportive noises in this regard," said a NAM diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "NAM does not want to pronounce on a proposal that basically no one knows full details about," the diplomat added.
Iran says its atomic drive is meant to generate electricity. The West, noting Iran has the world's second largest reserves of oil and gas, suspects Tehran is concealing an atom bomb project since it hid enrichment research from the IAEA for almost 20 years and has called for Israel's destruction.
Elements of the package of trade and technology sweeteners offered to Iran by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany have been leaked by diplomats. They include unspecified penalties should Iran rebuff the offer.
NAM countries are worried that making Iran abandon its nuclear fuel enrichment plans would set a precedent preventing other developing states pursuing an atomic energy option. They oppose any resort to sanctions as mooted by the West, seeing no justification so long as Iran has not been proved to be using enrichment technology to build atom bombs in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.