Washington, October 15: The US Secretary of State claims Russia will support new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, despite Moscow’s opposition.
“I believe if sanctions become necessary, we will have support from Russia,” Hillary Clinton told ABC television in an interview on Wednesday.
“The President, and he repeated again to us yesterday, has said consistently is that, look, Russia does not prefer sanctions … they have lots of doubts and concerns about sanctions. But sanctions may be inevitable,” she said.
“I believe if sanctions become necessary, we will have support from Russia,” Clinton added.
“Even [Foreign] Minister [Sergei] Lavrov has said that if Iran were to renege on the inspections, or renege on the agreement we’ve reached about shipping out the low enriched uranium … what else would you do? You’d have to sanction,” she said.
She claimed Russia and the US share similar policies on Iran’s nuclear program, noting that the two countries are different in their styles.
“They believe diplomacy should always be in private, not in public,” she said. “We conduct everything in public it seems like. So we have a slightly different approach, that we think both public and private combined are the best way to go.”
Clinton’s comments come as top Russian officials have voiced their opposition to new Iran sanctions signaling a widening rift between Russia and the West over their approach to Tehran’s nuclear issue.
—–Agencies