ALMATY: Major powers will offer Iran some sanctions relief during talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, this week if Tehran agrees to curb its nuclear programme, a US official said yesterday.
But the Islamic Republic could face more economic pain if it fails to address international concerns about its atomic activities, the official said ahead of the two-day meeting starting today in the central Asian state, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“There will be continued sanctions enforcement ... there are other areas where pressure can be put,” the official said, on the eve of the first round of negotiations between Iran and six world powers in eight months.
A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Tehran should understand that there was an “urgent need to make concrete and tangible progress” in Kazakhstan. Both Russia and the United States stressed there was not an unlimited amount of time to resolve a dispute that has raised fears of a new war in the Middle East.
“The window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open forever. But it is open today. It is open now,” US Secretary of State John Kerry told a news conference in London. “There is still time but there is only time if Iran makes the decision to come to the table and negotiate in good faith.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said there was “no more time to waste”, Interfax news agency quoted him as saying in Almaty.
The immediate priority for the powers — the United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France — is to convince Iran to halt its higher-grade enrichment, which is a relatively short technical step away from potential atom bomb material.
Iran, which has taken steps over the last year to expand its uranium enrichment activities in defiance of international demands to scale it back, wants a relaxation of increasingly harsh sanctions hurting its lifeline oil exports. Western officials say the Almaty meeting is unlikely to produce any major breakthrough, in part because Iran’s presidential election in June may make it difficult for it to make significant concessions before then for domestic reasons.Reuters
