IRAN:Six world powers agreed yesterday to push ahead with a third round of tougher sanctions against Iran unless reports later this month indicate Tehran has tried to address their concerns about its nuclear programme.
Senior officials from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China will meet again on November 19th to assess reports from Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the United Nations atomic watchdog, and from European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, a foreign office spokesman said.
"Political directors agreed to finalise a text for a third UN Security Council sanctions resolution with the intention of bringing it to a vote in the UN Security Council unless the November reports of Dr Solana and Dr ElBaradei show a positive outcome of the efforts," the spokesman said.
Iran has refused to halt uranium enrichment after two previous UN sanctions resolutions and denies it wants to make atomic bombs, saying its programme is for power generation.
Britain said yesterday the top officials had asked Mr Solana to seek a further meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and to report back.
The US imposed economic sanctions last week and has not ruled out military action against Iran. Britain has also been pushing hard for a third round of UN sanctions.
But diplomats from other countries have said they want to hear first how Iran's talks with the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are progressing after Tehran agreed to answer questions about past secret nuclear work.
Before the meeting, US undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns said Russia and China, major trading partners with Iran, had effectively blocked moves towards a third sanctions resolution for six months. Russia believes dialogue is the way forward while China reacted to the US sanctions by saying it was opposed to acting "too rashly".
But the group agreed to try to resolve the row through diplomacy, the foreign office spokesman said.
Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said yesterday that Tehran was cooperating with the IAEA, referring to an agreement in August under which Tehran pledged to clear up suspicions about past secret atomic activities.
Mr Rafsanjani, an influential cleric and speaker of the powerful Assembly of Experts, said: "America is making a mistake. Iran has entered into negotiations and is talking to the agency [ IAEA]. Iran has told [ the IAEA] to ask its questions and get the answers. One should be patient and negotiate."
Referring to any possible US military action, he said: "I am sure that if America seeks adventure again, soon all the nations of the world will realise that America has made an obvious mistake." He said "such threats, if they come true, will create another quagmire for the global arrogance of [ the US]". -