Russia urges to ease sanctions on Iran

PanARMENIAN.Net - World powers should offer to ease sanctions to gain Iran’s cooperation in resolving the dispute over the country’s nuclear program, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany have stalled since January and Russia believes incentives are needed to kick-start the process,” Lavrov said in an interview in Moscow, Bloomberg reports.

“We have to show to Iran that if it cooperates, if it answers satisfactorily the IAEA demands, then it should see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Lavrov said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

The Persian Gulf state in mid-2010 came under a fourth set of UN sanctions, which Russia supported. The U.S. and European Union later imposed tougher unilateral measures. “Russia won’t support new sanctions against Iran,” Lavrov said. “It’s a process that can only be successful if we count not on new sanctions and threats, but on negotiations.”

“If Iran agrees to resume tougher IAEA inspections, the EU and U.S. should pledge not to introduce any new, unilateral sanctions,” Lavrov said.

“And then when Iran does something else, expanding access for the IAEA to the places where the agency wants to go, then we suspend sanctions,” he said.