World powers meet on Iran nuclear program
Pastor Dale Morgan
World powers meet on Iran nuclear program*
From correspondents in Paris
December 02, 2007 03:54am
Article from: The Associated Press
OFFICIALS from six world powers held talks in Paris about Iran's nuclear
program, a day after an 18-month EU effort to persuade Tehran to stop
enriching uranium collapsed.
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns joined representatives from
the foreign ministries of Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany for
the closed-door talks at the French Foreign Ministry.
The meeting, involving the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council plus Germany, was expected to focus on a new push to find common
language for a third set of UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear
activities.
EU envoy Javier Solana held meetings with Saeed Jalili, Iran's senior
nuclear negotiator, in London.
Afterward, Solana said he was disappointed and suggested no more
meetings were planned.
The London meeting had been considered a last chance for Iran to give in
to UN pressure and freeze its enrichment program before an European
Union report on Iran's nuclear program that will be used in the
discussion of new sanctions.
The United States, France and Britain are urging quick and tough new
sanctions, but statements by Russia and China have suggested they are
sceptical.
Jalili said Iran was not worried about the prospect of new penalties and
noted advances in enrichment technology since the earlier sanctions were
imposed.
Iran has set up and is running 3,000 enriching machines, or centrifuges,
in the space of a year.
The Security Council imposed sanctions in December 2006 and March this year.
The current set bans Iranian arms exports and freezes the assets of 28
people and groups involved in its nuclear and missile programs.
While Iran insists it has a right to peaceful use of enrichment to
generate power, Washington and others fear the activity could be misused
to create the fissile core of nuclear warheads