Top UN diplomat: We encourage EU-Iran nuclear talks
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Brussels, Oct 2, IRNA
EU-UN-Brown
Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Mark Malloch Brown said Monday that the world body has left he European Union to play the central role to resolve Iran's nuclear issue.
"We have made a bit of division of labor on Iran very much leaving EU member states involved and the Security Council to lead the process," said Brown in reply to IRNA's question during a meeting with journalists in Brussels this afternoon.
"We very much look at ourselves as encouraging from the sidelines, not playing the central diplomatic role ourselves. That is very much (EU foreign policy chief) Mr. Solana's role," he said.
The top UN diplomat said he believed 'that that there are a ray of issues which separate Iran from the West at the moment, the nuclear issue is the most prominent', but also regional issues like Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
"We would like to see a time at which these discussions reach a point of broader agenda on both sides," he added.
Brown, who is on a two-day visit to Brussels for talks with EU officials, said that EU-UN relations have been one of dramatic growth particularly around elections and peace keeping, noting half-a-billion euro EU funding for UN development activities.
He described the ceasefire in Lebanon as a 'very good' outcome of EU-UN collaboration which resulted in a UN force with a very strong European character to it.
Referring to Iraq, Brown said 'the UN and multilateralism had its back broken' by disagreements over the Iraq war.
"The real lessons of Iraq is a boost to multilateralism," he said noting that Iraq is back at the center of UN attention.
In June, Brown, a British national, raised Washington's ire when he said the United States relies on the United Nations as a diplomatic tool.
Brown also spoke about the situation in Darfur, Kosovo and UN reforms.
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