Monday, 12 October 2009
MOSCOW (New York Times) — Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov on Thursday all but ruled out imposing new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Mr. Lavrov said he believed that a new set of proposals that Iran gave to European nations on Wednesday offered a viable basis for negotiations to end the dispute. He said he did not believe that the United Nations Security Council would approve new sanctions against Iran, which could ban Iran from exporting oil or importing gasoline.
“Based on a brief review of the Iranian papers, my impression is there is something there to use,” Mr. Lavrov said at a gathering of experts on Russia. “The most important thing is Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion of the situation, what positive role it can play in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region.”
Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, allowing it to veto any sanctions resolution, and it has close economic and diplomatic ties to Iran.
On Thursday, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said Iran would not negotiate further with the major powers about its nuclear program.
A five-page letter that Iran delivered to the European powers, and sent to Washington via the Swiss on Wednesday refers to “creating a world filled with spirituality, friendship, prosperity, wellness and security.”
“Some of the sanctions under discussion, including oil and oil products, are not a mechanism to force Iran to cooperate,” Mr. Lavrov said Thursday at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual meeting of Russia experts. “They are a step to a full-blown blockade, and I do not think they would be supported at the UN Security Council.”
Mr. Lavrov added, “Iran is a partner that has never harmed Russia in any way.”
Putin opposes sanctions on Iran
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has also warned against the use of force or new sanctions against Iran, according to the Associated Press.
Putin made the remarks during a meeting Friday with foreign experts on Russia, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov quoted Putin as saying Russia has no reason to doubt that Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceful.
China urges early talks on Iran's nuclear program
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday urged early talks on Iran’s nuclear program and said China has received the package of proposals drawn up by Iran. “We just received the package of proposals and are studying it seriously,” spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a press briefing. “In the current situation, the concerned sides should step up diplomatic efforts and kick off talks at an early date, so as to come to a comprehensive, long-term and proper solution on the issue,” Jiang said.
U.S. says Iran’s offers ‘not really responsive”
The United States has said the new offers from Iran are “not really responsive” to what it claimed concerns about its nuclear program.
Iran's five-page proposal calls for “comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations.” The talks would address nuclear disarmament as well as a global framework for the use of “clean nuclear energy,” according to the document published on Pro Publica's website.
“It is not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran's nuclear program,” Philip Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, told reporters. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added later: “There's nothing really new in the package itself.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's senior adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi said the package calls for setting up an international system to scrap and prevent nuclear weapons worldwide.
He suggested Iran aims to establish a global system in which nobody will be allowed to make nuclear weapons -- rather than to build an atomic weapon itself.
“Iran not only does not want to make nuclear weapons, but is actually intensely against nuclear weapons,” Hashemi told the newspaper. “In all truth, Iran is trying to establish a new regime to prevent nuclear weapons worldwide.”
Hashemi added that the package also calls for a broad range of cooperation in promoting regional and international security as well as fighting drug smuggling, terrorism and organized crime.
Crowley said the United States would talk again Friday with its partners in the so-called P5-plus-1 -- the five permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany -- after consulting them earlier this week.
“We'll be looking to see how... ready Iran is to actually engage. And we will be testing that willingness to engage in the next few weeks,” he said. -
