By NNN-KUNA,
United Nations : Russia is pulling out of the P5 plus Germany ministerial talks on Iran’s nuclear programme scheduled for this Thursday here in the margins of the General Assembly, claiming there is no fire in the issue.
“We don’t see any kind of fire that necessitates us to this extremely packed week at the General Assembly to make us toss everything else aside and urgently meet to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site Tuesday.
The foreign ministers of the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany were scheduled to meet here on Thursday during the General Assembly’s general debate. Their political directors met last week in Washington.
“It would be great if Washington would decide, finally, what kind of relations they want with Russia. If they want to punish Russia, that’s one thing, if they agree that we have mutual interests that need to be promoted by joining forces, that’s another,” the ministry said.
The statement is apparently in response to a statement by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week when she said the US and Europe must “stand up to” Russian aggression on Gerogia and convey to Moscow that it has become increasingly isolated in world affairs.
In a speech outlining US policy toward Russia following last month’s invasion of Georgia and amid rising tension with the West, Rice warned that Russia cannot be allowed to intimidate neighbouring countries and was at risk of losing its standing in international institutions.
“We cannot afford to validate the prejudices that some Russian leaders seem to have: that if you pressure free nations enough, if you bully and threaten and lash out, we will cave in, and forget and eventually concede,” she told an independent think-tank in Washington.