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RF position on Iran nuke dossier unchanged

RF Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia believes that sanctions against Iran are exhausted

MOSCOW, November 24 (Itar-Tass) — There are no concrete signals so far on the possibility of the transfer of the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

“Our position on Iran remains the same,” the diplomat noted. “We have repeatedly expressed it at various levels, namely - with the adoption of Resolution 1929 we state that the resource of sanction influence measures on Iran within the Security Council has exhausted itself.”

“Everything that can be in terms of sanctions proposed for approval by the Security Council – is beyond the framework outlined by this and other resolutions and has no relation to the objectives of strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime,” Gatilov said.

“In general, we believe that at present not the next set of restrictive measures against Iran should be considered, but how to develop a substantive dialogue between Tehran and the “Six”, as well as the constructive cooperation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to clarify outstanding issues on Iran’s past activities,” the deputy foreign minister said.

Asked about the prospects for a possible transfer of the Iranian “nuclear dossier” to the UN Security Council Gatilov said: “We have not heard so far about such concrete signals.”

The controversy over Iran's nuclear programs centres in particular on Iran's failure to declare sensitive enrichment and reprocessing activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Enrichment can be used to produce uranium for reactor fuel or (at higher enrichment levels) for weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, and has enriched uranium to less than 5 percent, consistent with fuel for a civilian nuclear power plant. Iran also claims that it was forced to resort to secrecy after US pressure caused several of its nuclear contracts with foreign governments to fall through. After the IAEA Board of Governors reported Iran's noncompliance with its safeguards agreement to the UN Security Council, the Council demanded that Iran suspend its nuclear enrichment activities while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has argued that the sanctions are “illegal,” imposed by “arrogant powers,” and that Iran has decided to pursue the monitoring of its self-described peaceful nuclear program through “its appropriate legal path,” the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In November of 2011 the IAEA released a report stating inspectors had found credible evidence that Iran had been conducting experiments aimed at designing a nuclear bomb until 2003, and research may have continued on a lower rate since that time. IAEA Director Yukiya Amano said evidence gathered by the agency “indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” Iran rejected IAEA's findings as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

The IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution by a vote of 32–2 that expressed “deep and increasing concern” over the possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program and calling it “essential” that Iran provide additional information and access to the IAEA. The United States welcomed the resolution and said it would step up sanctions to press Iran to change course. In response to the IAEA resolution, Iran threatened to reduce its cooperation with the IAEA, though Iranian Foreign Minister Salehi played down talk of withdrawal from the NPT or the IAEA.

Earlier, RF Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia believes that sanctions against Iran are exhausted. “Everything was done within the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear program. That is the goal of the sanction pressure. The remaining is being done unilaterally by America, Europe, Japan and Britain,” Lavrov told journalists on November 14.

“Moreover, Americans unilaterally use sanctions in the extra-territorial context by punishing companies of third countries, which carry out the UN Security Council resolutions, but they do not correspond to the Americans’ tougher sanctions,” the minister explained.

In his opinion, passions over the Iranian nuclear programme heighten in order to impose new sanctions. “Despite the fact nothing was found in compliance with the latest military research of Tehran, the IAEA Director-General decides to qualify the well-know data proving that Iran has its nuclear programme. You see the noise to reign in Israel, in Europe and in the United States on this aspect that contains nothing new,” Lavrov said.

“Unfortunately, the Iranian problem is solving in such a way to heighten confrontation and draw a scenario, which is aimed at changing the regime. The latest report by the IAEA Director-General has nothing new. It only proves that Iran has not given exhaustive explanations to the topics, which are called the military research. The topics of these military researches are not new. The IAEA had information on such Tehran’s researches. The IAEA only said Iran had not given an answer.” “Iran answered that it had have originals of documents, which justified its nuclear activities because what it had been given was the computer’s copy.” “We treat this seriously and want Iranians to start the dialogue and answer these questions. And suddenly the IAEA Director-General’s latest report decides to note that the well-known facts prove Iran has the nuclear programme. You see the noise to reign in Israel, in Europe and in the United States on this aspect that contains nothing new,” Lavrov pointed out.