Russia Deals West a Blow over Iran

Source: Al-Manar TV, 24-9-2008
Russia dealt a blow to the West on Tuesday when it forced world powers, gathering in New York in the framework of the UN General Assembly, to cancel a ministerial meeting on Iran's nuclear program.
The top diplomats of the six countries seeking to halt Iran's uranium enrichment were due to meet Thursday to debate new sanctions on Iran, the French foreign ministry said. However, the Russian foreign ministry saw no urgency in such a meeting.
"We do not see any fire that requires us to toss everything aside and meet to discuss Iran's nuclear program in the middle of a packed week at the United Nations General Assembly," the ministry said in a statement.
The United States then announced the talks had been called off.
"There is not going to be a P5-plus-one ministers meeting," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. The P5-plus-one is made up of the permanent five members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France -- plus Germany, which are trying to convince Iran to stop enriching uranium.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is also in New York, expressed concerned about the meeting's postponement. "There is no question that without such a meeting, which we urgently need in the current situation, it will be more complicated to bring the necessary international pressure to bear," Steinmeier said.
For his part, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Europe's message to Russia was that it could not accept the use of force to settle disputes. Sarkozy also called for a summit of world leaders to be held by the end of the year to discuss lessons learned from the global financial turmoil.
He said the G8 group are leading industrialized countries should be expanded to include China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil.
In a second setback for Western diplomacy, the Europeans abandoned plans to hold top-level international talks on the Georgia conflict in Geneva next month because of disagreements with Russia, foreign ministers said. These talks will only be held at the level of experts, a decision which seems to have been taken to avoid airing persistent disagreements with Russia.
A senior State Department official admitted it was Russia which scotched plans for the P5-plus-one meeting, and that all this was linked to differences between Russians and Westerners over the conflict in Georgia. "I think it is clear right now that while everybody is committed to a two track policy, at least a couple of members of the P5-plus-1, the Russians and the Chinese, are not ready at this point to engage actively on another sanctions resolution," he said.
"The Chinese are ready to engage" in talks, but Russia has questioned the meeting because Moscow "does not have the same sense of urgency about the situation," the official said. "Obviously it is a rocky period in our relations with the Russians ... There clearly is spillover," the official said.
Tensions with Moscow following the brief war in Georgia have cast a shadow over the UN General Assembly.