Representatives for the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany met today with envoys from Arab states to discuss efforts to halt Iran's disputed nuclear activities, Reuters reported (see GSN, Dec. 15).
The talks were expected to focus on addressing the Middle Eastern states' concerns about Iranian atomic efforts that could support weapons development, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday. Iran insists its nuclear work has no military component and has refused to halt uranium enrichment activities.
"It is in everyone's interest and in their interest that there be no worsening of the situation in this area," said Lavrov, who did not attend the session.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband added: "Iran's nuclear weapons program is increasingly recognized as a threat to the whole region of the Middle East. ... The development of a nuclear weapons program that kick-starts a nuclear arms race is the last thing the Middle East needs"
Miliband said that the six powers handling nuclear diplomacy with Iran -- China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- hoped to show Arab nations and others that Iran is not a target of a "vendetta of the Security Council" (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Dec. 16).
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana attended the talks along with representatives from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and states from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Dec. 16).
Rice yesterday said that economic penalties were causing a portion of the leadership in Tehran to question the wisdom of their country's atomic policy, the Associated Press reported.
"The Iranians are paying real costs for their behavior," Rice said. "It hasn't yet convinced them that they have to change their course, but there are plenty of voices being heard inside that government that are talking about the costs and about whether or not they've made a mistake in getting themselves so deeply isolated."
Rice did not suggest the standoff's final outcome, but she said the penalties would likely have an eventual impact.
"Sooner or later they are going to have to deal with the fact -- particularly with declining oil prices -- that those costs are going to become pretty acute," she said (Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 16).