Revealing a continuing lack of consensus among world powers over the Iran issue, Russia and China on Tuesday said sanctions were not the best way to resolve the crisis and urged Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency while advocating more negotiations.
"The question of sanctions against Iran puts the cart before the horse. Sanctions are in no way the best, or the only way to resolve international problems," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
He said Russia supported resumption of Iran's talks with UK, Germany and France but that this could only happen if it returned to its moratorium on Uranium enrichment.
"First of all, we should be doing our utmost for the IAEA to professionally collect maximum information to help us answer the questions we have Iran's nuclear programme," Lavrov said, adding, "Iran should do much more than it has done. Certain progress has been achieved in clarifying dark spots, but more is required of Iran."
China urged Iran to resume negotiations with the European Union while stressing that Beijing supported a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the issue. "China still hopes that peaceful negotiation and diplomatic means are good choices for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue and serve the interests of all the parties concerned. So we hope that all parties concerned will do their utmost to resume negotiations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told reporters in Beijing.
"The key of the issue is that Iran should resume negotiation with the three European countries (Britain, France and Germany). We believe and hope that under joint efforts of all parties concerned, we could return to the track of diplomatic negotiation and peaceful solution, which is crucial to all parties," Kong said.
The comments came as Iran vowed to put an end to tough UN inspections of its atomic programme and fully resume sensitive nuclear fuel work if its case was referred to the Security Council. The remarks also came after Russian, German, Chinese and US officials failed to reach full agreement on how to proceed on the Iran issue at a meeting in London on Monday.
Commenting on the meeting, Kong noted that all the parties at the meeting expressed concern at the resumption of nuclear fuel research of the Iranian side. "All parties believe that Iran should return to the moratorium and return to the diplomatic negotiation process. At this meeting, all parties said they were willing to make continued efforts to resolve the issue through diplomatic means. I think this is a clear message to the international community as well as Iran," he said.
