White House says Iran faces ‘unprecedented’ isolation over nuclear drive

Iran now faces an “unprecedented” level of isolation, with major world powers united in their opposition to Tehran getting a nuclear weapon and with the United Nations condemning a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

“Russia, China and the United States I can tell you share a similar goal, and that is to not seeing the Iranians move toward the development of nuclear weapons,” President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon told reporters.

“The degree of isolation really is unprecedented,” he said, referring a Friday vote by the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA expressing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

U.S. President Barack Obama discussed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions with Russian and Chinese leaders last week during an Asia-Pacific summit he hosted in Hawaii.

Donilon was speaking on the last day of Obama’s nine-day Asia tour, which is ending with his participation in an East Asia Summit meeting in the Indonesian island of Bali.

The UN atomic agency’s board passed Friday a resolution condemning Iran’s nuclear activities after the watchdog’s damning recent report but stopped short of setting Tehran a deadline to comply.

The text, proposed at the International Atomic Energy Agency by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and 12 others, also drew the line at reporting Iran to New York.

Iran said it would not attend an IAEA forum next week on ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons and that the resolution would only strengthen its resolve to press ahead with its “peaceful” nuclear program.

The resolution said it was “essential for Iran and the Agency to intensify their dialogue” and calls on Tehran “to comply fully and without delay with its obligations under relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.”

A total of 32 countries on the 35-nation IAEA board of governors voted in favour, with Indonesia abstaining and Cuba and Ecuador voting against, diplomats said.

To assuage Chinese and Russian misgivings, the resolution has no timeframe for Iran to comply, calling instead for IAEA head Yukiya Amano to report to the board in March on Tehran’s “implementation of this resolution.”

Last week, the IAEA came the closest yet to accusing Iran outright of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, in a report immediately rejected by the Islamic republic as “baseless.”

The US envoy to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, told the board on Friday that the “watershed report ... leaves little doubt that Iran, at the very least, wants to position itself for a nuclear weapons capacity.”