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Report: Iran, China to hold talks on nuclear row – Haaretz – Israel News.

The U.S. is pushing the UN Security Council for sanctions against Iran. (AP)

Last update – 13:00 31/03/2010

Report: Iran, China to hold talks on nuclear row

By News Agencies

Iran plans to hold talks with China over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, official news agency IRNA reported Wednesday.

Chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is to go to Beijing Thursday to meet Chinese officials and discuss the latest developments in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the report said.

While the United States, Britain and France are in favor of imposing further sanctions against Iran, the other two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China and Russia – have been reluctant to back such measures.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he hoped the UN Security Council would adopt tougher sanctions against Iran within “weeks” if the Islamic republic continued to refuse to comply with the council’s resolutions on the matter.

Iran has several times said the sanctions are a futile effort by the world powers to stop the country’s nuclear program, and hailed China – and Russia – for resisting the introduction of new sanctions.

Tehran has consistently rejected Western charges that it is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, saying its atomic projects are solely for peaceful purposes.

Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at a joint White House news conference, made clear they felt it was time to move ahead with tougher sanctions that their governments have been negotiating with China, Russia, Germany and Britain.

“My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring,” Obama said. “I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks.”

China, reluctant for months, is believed to be slowly falling in line in backing the idea of new sanctions.

Sarkozy said “the time has come to take decisions” on Iran and that with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, “we will make all necessary efforts to make sure that Europe as a whole engages in the sanctions regime.”

Obama said the long-term consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are unacceptable and that Tehran had so far rejected diplomatic entreaties.
“The door remains open if the Iranians choose to walk through it,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, the United States failed to win overwhelming support from world economic powers for sanctions to block Tehran’s nuclear ambitions as G8 foreign ministers issued an insipid statement on Iran.

In a joint statement issued after the meeting of the leading industrialized nations in Ottawa, Canada, foreign ministers of the Group of Eight countries said that an Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

“Ministers agreed to remain open to dialogue and also reaffirmed the need to take appropriate and strong steps to demonstrate international resolve to uphold the international nuclear nonproliferation regime,” the communique said.

This entry was posted on March 31, 2010 at 2:42 PM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.