Vienna: UN nuclear watchdog governors meet on Monday to consider Iran's blockade of an investigation into alleged atom bomb research, but a resurfacing of Cold War-style tensions will prevent them doing much about it.
A second inquiry targeting Syria has faltered too.
Meetings of the 35-nation body have at times been dry runs for UN Security Council action against suspected nuclear proliferators. But unity of purpose, never guaranteed, has been further undermined by tensions between Russia and the West.
With the two sides at odds over Russia's invasion of Georgia, diplomats said consensus on even a largely symbolic resolution against Iran by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) governors was out of the question in Vienna this week - let alone tougher sanctions by the Security Council in New York.
Western powers at the IAEA board meeting will call again on Iran to stop stonewalling or risk more punishment, but their demand will lack teeth in the absence of any realistic prospect for new sanctions.
Call for dialogue
Russia, China and developing states, together comprising over half of the governors, were likely to stress the need for cooperation by Iran but also dialogue, not punishment.
The IAEA believes Iran is withholding information needed to explain "serious" intelligence allegations that it conducted a series of linked projects to process uranium, test high explosives and revamp a missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.
A September 15, IAEA report detailed Iranian non-cooperation with agency requests for documents and access to sites to back up Iran's denials of the allegations. Senior UN officials said the IAEA had "reached gridlock" with Iran.
Tehran meanwhile has slowly but steadily expanded its uranium enrichment campaign in defiance of Security Council demands.
The IAEA began probing Syria in April based on US intelligence suggesting a desert complex destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007 was a nascent nuclear reactor of North Korean design meant to make plutonium for atom bombs.
Satellite pictures show Syria swiftly bulldozed the area and removed debris in a possible cover-up, US analysts say. Syria denies having a covert nuclear programme. It gave IAEA inspectors access to the site at Al Kibar in June.
But partial results of environmental samples they took there bore no traces of a reactor and Syria has refused IAEA visits to three other sites, all military, seen as linked to Al Kibar and key to clearing up the mystery, diplomats said.
Meetings of the 35-nation body have at times been dry runs for UN Security Council action against suspected nuclear proliferators.
