WarSclerotic

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the U.S. and other guests at the dinner failed to bridge gaps over a proposed nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran.

In a “frank and professional exchange” with Mottaki, U.S. diplomat Alejandro Wolff and other council representatives “pointed out the significant flaws and shortcomings in Iran’s approach,” Crowley said.

“Mottaki focused on the Iranian counterproposal to the Tehran research reactor, which deviates in significant ways from the balanced IAEA proposal that Iran agreed to and then walked away from last October,” Crowley said.

“But we see this as yet another missed opportunity by Iran to meet its international obligations,” Crowley said.

Fourth round of sanctions

In a bid to boost trust, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposed last year that Iran send most of its lower-grade uranium abroad to be further enriched and sent back for medical research purposes.

The United States has been spearheading a drive for a fourth round of U.N. Security Council sanctions. It is trying to get Iran to stop enriching uranium, which can be used as fuel either for civilian power reactors or atomic weapons.

However, China is the main holdout to tougher sanctions on the U.N. Security Council, along with Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon. A previously reluctant Russia now appears more open to sanctions.

But Crowley said that, during the dinner, both Russia and China joined “in pressing Iran… to change its course.”

China and Russia along with Britain, France and the United States are the permanent five veto-wielding members of the Security Council.

Crowley also said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meanwhile Friday reviewed efforts for a new sanctions resolution in a conference call with senior diplomats from France, Britain, Germany and the

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department’s director of policy planning, told department colleagues that Iran is trying all the harder to engage the international community in a bid to stop its growing isolation.

“President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad coming to the U.N., the dinner last night… I read these as signs that the government is quite worried,” Slaughter told diplomats and Foreign Service staff in a speech broadcast to journalists.

Ahmadinejad was the only head of state to travel to the United Nations for the first two days of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference.

Highest level contacts

And the dinner invitation to the 15 council members — with journalists observing all but diplomats from Nigeria and Gabon showing up — yielded one of the highest-level U.S.-Iran contacts since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Even though Washington and Tehran have had no diplomatic relations since April 1980, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff attended the dinner in Manhattan — an unusual move for the United States.

Wolff renewed U.S. calls for the release of all Americans held in Iran when he chatted with Mottaki Thursday evening, Crowley said.

U.S. hikers Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were arrested last July 31 after straying across the border during a hiking trip in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi charged in early April that the three were working with intelligence services.