US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to huddle with her counterparts from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to discuss a third round of sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
The aim of the meeting is "to chart a way ahead, a diplomatic path forward for the rest of the autumn as we seek to continue this good cooperation internationally," US Under Secretary of State for political affairs Nicholas Burns said Wednesday after a meeting of senior officials of the six powers.
"But I wouldn’t anticipate concluding negotiations on a sanctions resolution," he added.
The six-way talks, on the margins of the ongoing UN General Assembly session, were to be followed two hours later by talks between Rice and her three European colleagues.
"We are working very closely with some of those states that will be there — Germany, France, England — on bilateral sanctions issues," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday.
"The European Union is also working on its own set of possible sanctions as well. So we will be talking to them about those two tracks."
Rice meets Friday with foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia, Yang Jiechi of China, David Milliband of Britain, Bernard Kouchner of France and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany.
Lavrov, speaking at a reception here late Thursday, said ongoing talks between Iran and the UN’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be given a chance to proceed.
"At the time when the IAEA is making progress, … not on all things which the IAEA demanded …, but the progress is obvious, we want to make sure that we indeed receive a report from IAEA on how those problems which still exist in IAEA perception of the Iranian nuclear program are being treated," he added.
Iran and the IAEA agreed on a timetable last month for Tehran to provide answers to outstanding questions over its nuclear program, and officials from the UN’s nuclear watchdog are in Iran for talks.
The IAEA has been probing Iran’s program for the past four years but has so far failed to conclude whether it is peaceful or not.
"I think it’s a very important moment in the entire process and we want to get this professional assessment by the (IAEA) inspectors," Lavrov said.
Commenting on Lavrov’s comments, McComarck said: "you still have an agreement on the basic strategy that is the Security Council to pressure the Iranians to change their behavior."
"We think the Security Council should move forward with a sanctions resolution. Now," he added.
Iran rejects Western charges that it is trying to build atomic weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program and insists it is entitled to pursue uranium enrichment as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The UN Security Council has passed two rounds of sanctions to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to supply the fuel for power generation or nuclear arms.
But despite the threat of tougher sanctions, Iran refuses to budge.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the UN General Assembly earlier this week that his nuclear standoff with the West was now a "closed" issue and that remaining outstanding questions should be handled by the IAEA.
Washington dismissed those comments, with Burns shooting back: "The Iranian president is badly mistaken if he thinks that the international community is going to forget about the fact that his country is continuing, against the will of the UN Security Council, its nuclear research program in Natanz."
France said it did not believe Iran’s claims that its nuclear activities are peaceful.
"Ahmadinejad says that the program is peaceful. Ultimately, we do not believe him. Everyone knows that the program has military goals," French presidential spokesman David Martinon said. "We have a string of very powerful clues leading us to that conclusion.