S.Africa says open to talks on Iran sanction vote

PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa's proposed amendments to a draft U.N. resolution on Iran sanctions were designed to open discussion not scuttle an agreement forged by major powers, a senior official said on Friday.

"It is not written in stone. It is a negotiating position," Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said in a briefing, adding that Pretoria was weighing how it would vote in the Security Council if the amendments are not a part of the final version.

"We will decide how to vote when the vote comes," Pahad told a regular news briefing. "We don't want to seem as though we are opposing things just to oppose them."

South Africa, the current president of the Security Council, introduced amendments aimed at softening the draft U.N. resolution on Iran's nuclear programme in a move that was later backed by Indonesia and Qatar.

South Africa's proposal aimed to drop all the key sanctions proposed by the major powers, including an arms embargo and financial bans on an Iranian state bank and the Revolutionary Guards, and to suspend all other sanctions for 90 days to allow for more talks with Tehran.

The amendments were offered despite an earlier agreement by Germany and the five permanent members of the 15 member council -- The United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- on the wording of the draft resolution.

Pahad said South Africa was within its rights to suggest changes to the draft document, which he said had only been presented to other Security Council members at the last minute.

"The draft resolution was never shown to us, so it's not wrong for us to make our views known," he said.

Diplomats from the major powers said they want the Security Council to vote on Saturday on the draft resolution, which demands that Iran halt uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to build a bomb, or for generating electricity.