Posted By: Tom Hustler

By David BrunnstromFri Nov 3, 8:39 AM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia will not back a draft U.N.
sanctions resolution against Iran without significant changes,
a senior Russian official said as world powers prepared to meet
on Friday to tackle differences over the move.
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Negotiations on the draft resolution, drawn up by Britain,
France and Germany with general U.S. support, promise to be
arduous, possibly lasting weeks, because veto-wielding Russia
and China oppose tough sanctions.

"We will not support the present version," Russia's
Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Kislyak as saying, adding that the proposal "requires major
fine-tuning."

Kislyak spoke just before European Union foreign ministers
met their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Brussels to
clarify Moscow's stance before envoys of the six powers met at
the United Nations later in the day. Lavrov declined comment.

On Wednesday, he said Russia rejected steps that would
corner Iran, alluding to a travel ban in the draft on Iran's
nuclear ambitions, which the West believes are a cover for
bombmaking but Tehran says involve generating electricity only.

"We cannot support measures which, in essence, aim at
isolating Iran from the outside world, including the isolation
of people who are charged with leading negotiations on the
nuclear program," Lavrov said.

The draft orders all countries to prevent the sale and
supply of equipment, technology and financing contributing to
Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It would freeze
assets of people and entities involved in these programs and
prevent them from traveling except for special events.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said: "We continue to
believe that the draft is a good basis for negotiation ... This
is a complex and sensitive negotiation."

"I would think we will get a resolution imposing some minor
sanctions," said a Western diplomat at the United Nations, who
asked not to be identified. "But that would require substantive
concessions from both the Americans, who want tougher
sanctions, and the Russians, who (really) want no sanctions at
all."

Friday's meeting of the six powers will be the first in
more than a week. All but Germany, a key negotiator, are
permanent Security Council members with veto rights.

Russia's demands are expected to include softening the
sanctions and redefining an exemption for a nuclear reactor
Moscow is building for Iran, said council members speaking on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

DIFFICULT COMPROMISE NEEDED

The European-authored draft exempts from sanctions the $800
million Bushehr reactor in southwestern Iran, expected to go
into operation late next year.

But the draft says Russia must check with a Security
Council committee if it delivers material that can be used for
weapons, such as parts used for the uranium enrichment cycle.

Russia has objected to including Bushehr in the resolution
in the first place, saying it was a power plant that is legal
under the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Lavrov said the resolution should focus only on areas theInternational Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog,
has defined as serious, such as uranium enrichment, chemical
processing and heavy-water reactors.

Iran's nuclear research program has already purified
nominal amounts of uranium to the low level needed to fuel
power plants. Refined to a high level, uranium can set off the
chain reaction at the heart of atomic bombs.

In June, the six powers offered Iran trade and technology
incentives to shelve its enrichment project but only on the
condition -- rejected by Tehran -- that it take that step
first.

EU powers drew up the sanctions draft after Tehran ignored
a Council resolution demanding it stop enrichment by August 31.

Iran has the world's second largest oil reserves but says
it needs alternative energy sources for the future when its
fossil fuels may run out. The West says Iran's history of
concealing nuclear work from U.N. inspectors raises suspicions.

"The world should know that any decision it takes or
whatever they do, our nation will not abandon this right (to
peaceful nuclear energy)," powerful cleric Ayatollah Ahmad
Jannati told Friday prayer worshippers in Tehran.

(Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold at the United
Nations, Ali Ronaghi and Parisa Hafezi in Tehran, Dmitry
Solovyov in Moscow, Mark Heinrich in Vienna and Sophie Walker
in London)

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