By SPA
Washington : Six major powers are scheduled to meet Monday in Washington for new talks on how to make Iran suspend its controversial nuclear-enrichment activities, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said foreign ministry officials of the six-the five U.N. Security Council permanent members plus Germany-would review a proposed third U.N. sanctions resolution against Iran.
“We will review our strategy in New York [City], the pace of the resolution,” said Burns, the third-ranking U.S. diplomat.
The six powers want Iran to stop enriching uranium, a process which many suspect Tehran seeks to use to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is only pursuing nuclear power for electricity generation.
The U.N. ambassadors from Britain and France on Thursday formally submitted to the Security Council the text of a resolution for new sanctions, which they hope to see passed as soon as possible. The proposed sanctions include economic and trade restrictions and a travel ban against officials involved in the nuclear program.
The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency said Friday it had made “quite good progress” in its investigation into Iran’s disputed nuclear program, but was still not in a position to fully judge Iran’s intentions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) complained that Iran was continuing to defy U.N. demands to suspend uranium enrichment and had supplied only vague details to IAEA inspectors.
Kate Starr, a White House national security spokeswoman, said the United States was “disappointed” with Iran and would continue to seek more U.N. sanctions.
In Tehran, top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said further sanctions would be a “disgrace,” arguing that the report proved that accusations that it seeks nuclear weapons were baseless.