PARIS: High-ranking officials from the UN Security Council's five permanent members and Germany are scheduled to gather in Paris today (Tuesday) to decide on a common position to tackle Tehran's refusal to halt its nuclear programme. The meeting comes a day after an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said that Iran would "give full cooperation" if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UNSC were to decide that Tehran's nuclear be examined by the nuclear watchdog.
The P5-plus-Germany meeting, to be held at the political director-level, will be the first time that the six countries have convened since the IAEA reported last Friday to the UNSC that Iran was violating a UN order to halt uranium enrichment. The summit will also establish the groundwork for a foreign ministerial meeting of the six countries scheduled for May 9 in New York. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had talked tough ahead of today's meeting, saying on Sunday that the international community's credibility was at stake and that "we can either mean what we say when we say that Iran must comply, or we can continue to allow Iran to defy". |