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01 December 2006

State's Burns Will Discuss Iran with Partners in Paris

Under secretary next travels to New Delhi to discuss U.S.-India partnership

Washington -- The State Department is sending one of its highest-ranking officials to Paris, where he will meet with political directors of the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany to “pursue progress” on a resolution sanctioning Iran for its nuclear weapons program.

R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, will meet with his counterparts in what is termed P5+1 talks December 5.

P5 refers to the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other party in these talks – the “+1” – is Germany.

Burns is already in Brussels, Belgium, where he has been participating in a ministerial gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He also is scheduled to meet with Indian officials in New Delhi December 6-9 for bilateral discussions and a session of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue.

While in Brussels, the focus for Burns is on how the United States, along with representatives of 55 other nations, most effectively can support human rights, democracy, election monitoring, arms control, conflict resolution, and other issues that affect stability in Europe and Eurasia.

In Paris, the under secretary will address Iran's refusal to cease its program to enrich uranium, which Tehran says it needs as fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor it is constructing. The International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations, unsuccessfully has sought to elicit full and complete answers to its questions about Iran's nuclear program since Iran’s covert nuclear activity was discovered more than three years ago.

That led the Security Council to pass Resolution 1696 on July 31. The resolution called on Iran to render satisfactory answers to the IAEA's question, demanded that Iran stop all uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities (each of which provides essential material for producing nuclear weapons). (See related article.)

Thus far, Iran has not complied, which is why the United States is seeking another Security Council resolution, one that would impose sanctions on Iran for its noncompliance.

On December 1, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States wants a sanctions resolution even without the unanimous support of the Security Council's five permanent members. A Security Council member has the right to abstain from voting, which means a permanent member could withhold support from the resolution without blocking it. (See related article.)

In India, Burns plans to discuss bilateral and regional issues with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and other senior government officials. The topics will include the U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation initiative, defense cooperation, and trade and investment relations.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)