TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Rice Unable To Convince Russia About Iran Penalty

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: December 9, 2007

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday the United States would continue along a two-track strategy to deal with Iran, pressing for new sanctions and demanding Tehran come clean about its nuclear program while offering talks to sweeten the deal. But Russia ignored her calls to punish Iran.

Despite strong support from NATO allies in the wake of a new U.S. intelligence report that concludes Iran actually stopped atomic weapons development in 2003, the top U.S. diplomat was unable to persuade Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the urgency of fresh sanctions.

Rice said her talks with Lavrov were "an extension of other conversations we have had," suggesting the two didn't see eye to eye.

"We are going to continue along the two-track process," Rice said at a news conference, referring to sanctions and diplomacy.

Rice was explaining the U.S. re-evaluation of the Iranian threat during annual meetings at NATO's Belgium headquarters. She also spent two days here galvanizing support for a U.S.-led drive for a third, tougher set of U.N. Security Council sanctions on the clerical regime. The sanctions are meant to force Iran to roll back elements of a nuclear program it claims is peaceful but the United States and its allies have said could lead to a bomb.

The latest U.S. intelligence assessment appears to undermine the Bush administration's claim that Iran is driving toward a bomb and thus poses an urgent threat. Rice and other U.S. officials insist Iran remains a danger, and they note it could restart a shelved program using technology and materials it is still amassing.

After seeing Rice at NATO, Lavrov told reporters: "It fully confirms the information that we have: that there is no military element in their nuclear program. We hope very much that these negotiations with Iran will continue."

The question is really not whether to continue negotiations - a process that has so far yielded nothing - but whether Russia and fellow Security Council holdout China will agree that further coercive sanctions are the best way to persuade Iran to really bargain during those talks.

The European-led talks could offer Iran a package of incentives including civilian nuclear cooperation in return for a shutdown of uranium enrichment and reprocessing. Lavrov, who has become the public face of opposition to the U.S. and European sanctions strategy, has maintained Russia has no evidence that Tehran had ever had a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of international treaty obligations.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT