Paris, September 06: The EU finds unilateral sanctions on Iran unhelpful and believes that a diplomatic solution is still possible, says the Italian foreign minister.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini who is in Stockholm for informal talks with his EU counterparts, said that the 27-member bloc seeks to keep alive the prospects of diplomatic dialogue with Tehran over its nuclear program for as long as possible, IRNA reported on Saturday.
Paris, however, has questioned the usefulness of pursuing negotiations with Tehran on its nuclear case. “We have been talking with Iran for three years. Absolutely nothing has been achieved and we continue to speak …,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Friday.
While some countries favor tougher sanctions on Iran, Frattini believes that any fresh measures “must be effective, otherwise they won’t be credible,” he said. The EU should avoid imposing sanctions that would prove ineffective in the future.
“They must be adopted by the UN Security Council but we well know that Russia and China are reticent,” he added.
The West accuses Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of seeking nuclear weapons through its enrichment program.
Tehran denies the charges saying that it is enriching uranium to produce fuel for its nuclear power plants to meet the country’s growing demand for electricity.
Moreover, The UN nuclear watchdog in its latest report confirmed that Iran has improved its cooperation with the agency and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been able to continue to “verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material” in the country.
—–Agencies