ISTANBUL — Upcoming talks between six world powers and Iran should cover the lifting of international sanctions imposed on Tehran for its suspected nuclear programme, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.
But a Western diplomat warned that an agreement was unlikely to emerge from the meeting that will bring together Iran and the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany -- Friday and Saturday here.
"The nuclear programme must be at the heart of the discussions and the problems that have not yet been resolved concerning it," Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart.
"But there's not only one topic for this meeting, the lifting of sanctions on Iran must also be on the agenda," he said.
Earlier Lavrov indicated that Moscow was opposed to additional unilateral sanctions against Iran, as mooted on Wednesday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"We explained to our partners in the US and the EU what we thought about unilateral sanctions and we hope that they have heard us," he said. "It is counterproductive to continuing our common effort to resolve the Iran nuclear issue."
Russia and China backed a fourth set of UN sanctions against Iran last June as Tehran presses on with its enrichment of uranium, which it says is needed for power generation not weapons.
The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was meanwhile due to pay a courtesy call on Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili, a Turkish diplomat said.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario