U.S. President Barack Obama told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday that Washington will keep up its push for new United Nations sanctions on Iran, saying Tehran's recent actions "do not build confidence," the White House said.
"The president stressed the international community's continuing and fundamental concerns about Iran's overall nuclear program," the White House said in a statement summarizing Obama's telephone conversation with Erdogan.
The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled a draft resolution agreed to by all five permanent Security Council members, including China and Russia, for new sanctions on Iran.
That came a day after Turkey and Brazil brokered a nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran on Wednesday dismissed the draft UN resolution to expand sanctions, but Obama insisted Washington would press ahead and that Tehran could not be trusted.
The draft resolution, agreed to by all five permanent Security Council members after months of negotiation, targets Iranian banks and calls for inspection of vessels suspected of carrying cargo related to Iran's nuclear or missile programs.
But the proposed sanctions are far more modest than the crippling measures Obama's administration originally pushed for, largely as a result of objections by China and Russia, which have close trading ties with Tehran.
"The draft being discussed at the United Nations Security Council has no legitimacy at all," Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's senior adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi as saying.
Western diplomats said the text resulted from a compromise between the United States and its three European allies, which had pushed for much tougher sanctions against Tehran, and Russia and China, which sought to dilute them.
Few of the proposed measures are new. But Western diplomats said the end result was probably the best they could have hoped for, given China's and Russia's determination to avoid measures that might have undermined Iran's troubled economy.
Despite that, Obama hailed the draft plan and again called on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said there was "no chance for a new resolution" to be approved at the Security Council. "Let's not take this seriously," he told reporters at a meeting in Tajikistan.
Iran rejects Western allegations its nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons. It says its atomic ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and refuses to suspend uranium enrichment.
"A fourth round of sanctions is unlikely to change the Iranian attitude towards its nuclear program. Developing its nuclear program is a strategic decision and currently priority for the regime in Tehran," said Nicole Stracke, an Iran expert at Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
"Therefore, the Iranian regime will divert the resources necessary to further the progress of its nuclear program."
The decision to circulate the resolution to the Security Council on Tuesday was a rebuff to a deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey in which Iran agreed to send some enriched uranium abroad in return for fuel rods for a medical research reactor.
Iran and the two countries that brokered the swap deal urged a halt to talk of further sanctions. But the United States and its European allies regard the deal as a maneuver by Iran to delay their efforts to increase pressure on Tehran.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the fuel deal had "nothing to do" with the uranium enrichment that led to the first three rounds of sanctions on Iran and the latest draft resolution.
Erdogan, speaking by phone with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said the Iran nuclear standoff must be solved through dialogue and diplomacy, Erdogan's office said. Putin said Turkey's and Brazil's efforts opened "additional possibilities," the statement said.
Western powers say that in addition to refusing to suspend enrichment, Iran has not opened up completely to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.
The draft resolution "calls upon states to take appropriate measures that prohibit" the opening of new Iranian bank branches or offices abroad if there is reason to suspect they might be aiding Iran's nuclear or missile programs.
It also calls on states "to exercise vigilance over transactions involving Iranian banks, including the Central Bank of Iran" to ensure those transactions do not aid Tehran's nuclear and missile programs.
It urges countries to be wary of dealing with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and says some members and companies it controls will be added to existing lists of individuals and firms facing asset freezes and travel bans.
The draft calls for an expansion of an existing arms embargo to include more types of heavy weapons.
The draft will likely be revised in the coming weeks.
Aside from Turkey and Brazil, council member Lebanon has made clear it would have trouble supporting sanctions against Iran. Lebanon, diplomats say, will likely abstain from a vote on the resolution because the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah is in its government.