Israel Matzav

'Smart diplomacy': Turkey still opposes sanctions

President Obama may have met with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Washington this week, but if he tried to convince him to support sanctions against Iran the impact was precisely zero.

Turkey's foreign minister said Wednesday that he did not support new U.N. sanctions against Iran, indicating there were still important holdouts as the Obama administration tries to win approval for a new resolution aimed at punishing the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities.

China, which holds a veto on the Security Council, as well as Brazil and Lebanon, two other members on the 15-member body, also have stressed the need for additional diplomacy.

"We don't want to see sanctions. It will affect us. It will affect the region," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters.

Davutoglu declined to say how his government would vote when a sanctions measure comes to the Security Council. But his remarks suggest the Obama administration will have difficulty meeting its goal of new sanctions by the end of April in order to demonstrate unified international opposition to Iran's program. Three previous sanctions resolutions on Iran had near-unanimous approval.

What 'end of April'? It's already the 15th and the sanctions aren't even on the agenda. In May, Lebanon is chairing the Security Council, so you can bet they won't come up then either. So that puts us into June. Maybe Iran will be a nuclear power by then. What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:46 PM