Iran sanctions resolution due for Saturday vote

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Security Council members on Friday will review a revised draft of a U.N. resolution to impose new sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, with a view to voting over the weekend.

While major powers said their proposed text was a final version, changes are still likely before a vote that British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said was planned for Saturday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to address the council in New York on the day of the vote to stress that his country's nuclear program is for generating energy, not for producing atomic bombs as the West suspects.

But Iran said on Friday the United States, despite saying on Monday it would allow him to enter, had so far failed to give a visa to Ahmadinejad.

"Despite passing all the bureaucratic stages and despite all the promises American officials gave through the media for issuing the visa for the Iranian presidential delegation, until this moment, the visas of Iran's president and his accompanying delegation have not been issued," Senior Foreign Ministry official Abbas Araghchi said in a faxed statement.

The draft U.N. resolution, obtained by Reuters, rejects nearly all of the amendments from South Africa that would have stripped the text of most provisions on weapons and financial bans.

But the negotiators provided a requested explanation of why each name on a list of 28 Iranian individuals, companies and institutions should be subject to an assets freeze.

In response, South Africa's ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, this month's council president, expressed dismay.