Russia Says Threat Of Force Hindering Nuclear Talks With Iran
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the threat of military action against Iran has disrupted the course of nuclear negotiations.
Ria Novosti reports that Lavrov said: “Time and again we hear threats that if there is no progress on Iran’s nuclear program, only one option will remain — the use of force. We hope that will never happen.”
The Russian foreign minister added: “This is a straight path to undermining the efforts to resolve all outstanding issues.”
He stressed that concentrating on the efforts of the “five plus one group” could lead to “a way out of the impasse.”
According to Ria Novosti, Iran’s envoy to Moscow announced that Iran is prepared to hold constructive talks with the six world powers but stressed that the West needs to abandon its hostile position toward the Islamic Republic as a precondition for the negotiations.
The United States and the EU have imposed severe sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors to make Islamic Republic leaders more malleable in the nuclear negotiations.
Iranian authorities, however, have refused to back down from their uranium enrichment activities, stressing that it is only for non-military purposes. They have said, however, that the uranium enrichment program is negotiable if the sanctions against Iran are drooped.
