Russian FM says threats of Iran sanctions won’t work

Russia's foreign minister declared Tuesday that threatening Iran with more sanctions would be counterproductive, resisting efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to win agreement for tougher measures if Iran fails to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke as Clinton visited Moscow, her first trip since becoming America's top diplomat, in an effort to gauge Moscow's willingness to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions.

Lavrov said Russia's position is that under current conditions even the threat of sanctions against Iran would be counterproductive.
Iran insists it has the right to a full domestic nuclear enrichment program and maintains it is only for peaceful purposes, such as energy production.

Iran is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions. Russia and China have balked at imposing new penalties on Iran, although Medvedev has hinted that the Russian position might be shifting after Tehran disclosed a previously secret uranium enrichment site near the holy city of Qom.

Sanctions have become a harder sell after Iran agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to visit the Qom site and agreed, in principle, to send most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia for reprocessing.