SIX MAJOR POWERS RESUME TALKS ON IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

PanARMENIAN.Net
25.03.2010 11:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Britain’s UN ambassador said senior officials of
the six major powers held a conference call Wednesday on possible
new U.N. sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program.

Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters that political directors
from the five permanent Security Council member nations, plus Germany,
spoke together on Wednesday.

"I have not had full readout of that meeting yet," said Mark Lyall
Grant. "But they have agreed they will have a further discussion of
possible measures early next week."

Those possible measures include new sanctions against members of
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps as well as sanctions
against Iran’s insurance and shipping sectors.

Security Council member China, which has been the most reluctant of
the six to support new sanctions against Iran, took part in Wednesday’s
conference call.

Iran’s leaders have worked to pursue nuclear energy technology since
the 1950s, spurred by the launch of U.S. President Dwight D.

Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. It made steady progress,
with Western help, through the early 1970s. But concern over Iranian
intentions followed by the upheaval of the Islamic Revolution in 1979
effectively ended outside assistance. Iran was known to be reviving
its civilian nuclear programs during the 1990s, but revelations
in 2002 and 2003 of clandestine research into fuel enrichment and
conversion raised international concern that Iran’s ambitions had
metastasized beyond peaceful intent. Although Iran has consistently
denied allegations it seeks to develop a bomb, the September 2009
revelation of a second uranium enrichment facility near the holy city
of Qom -constructed under the radar of international inspectors –
deepened suspicion surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.