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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Top talks on Iran's nuclear program called off |
| 2008-09-25 |
| The United States and five other powers on Tuesday called off plans for high-level talks here this week to debate further sanctions against Iran, after Moscow opposed the move and complained of U.S. attempts to "punish" it. Russia's decision to pull out of the Iran talks appeared to be a tit-for-tat gesture after the United States balked at another high-level meeting of the so-called Group of Eight industrial nations that would have included Russia, said Germany's foreign minister. The cancellation of the meeting in New York involving U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came amid rising U.S.-Russian tensions over the crisis in Georgia. "There is not going to be a P5-plus-one ministers meeting" on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. The Iran meeting would have brought together foreign ministers from the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - France, Britain, the United States, China, Russia plus Germany. The six countries are involved in diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Russia's foreign ministry, angered by U.S. calls for Moscow to be penalized over its war with Georgia, said it saw no need for major powers to meet over Iran's nuclear program on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "We see no 'fire alarm' which would require us to put off other things in the extremely busy week of the U.N. General Assembly and meet in emergency session on the Iranian nuclear problem," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said. However, U.S. State Department spokesman McCormack said that Rice would hold a one-on-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here on Wednesday. McCormack did not acknowledge that Georgia was the stumbling block, but said "we agree with them (the Russians) that the time is not right to have a meeting at the ministerial level." The various State Department and foreign ministry "political directors can continue on their assignments regarding a future (U.N.) resolution," McCormack said. The six political directors met in Washington last week. The State Department issued a statement afterward saying the six were "committed to exploring possible further" U.N. Security Council sanction resolutions against Iran, which is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions. But Russia said Saturday it had rejected U.S. proposals for new U.N. Security Council measures against Iran. China said September 16 that U.N.-imposed sanctions would not resolve the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program. Nonetheless, McCormack said "there is no question about the two track process. It remains in place." He was referring to the carrot-and-stick approach to induce Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects is being used to build an atomic bomb but which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy. |
| Posted by:Fred |