U.S., Russia Still Demanding Iran End Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons
07 March 2006
Rice, Russia's Lavrov also discuss Hamas, World Trade Organization issues
Washington -- The United States and Russia remain united in rejecting any effort by Iran to enrich nuclear fuel within its territory, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said March 7 after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the State Department.
“The United States has been very clear that [uranium] enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable because of the proliferation risk,” Rice said. She added that the United States and Russia “are both operating from the February 4th resolution” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors calling for the Iran issue to go to the United Nations Security Council.
Rice added that “the Russians did not tell us of any new proposal that they have made to the Iranians” concerning small-scale enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory. Russia has proposed a joint venture – which the United States supports – that calls for enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel on Russian soil, with fuel provided to Iran by Russia for civil use.
“There is no compromise, new Russian proposal,” Lavrov, speaking through an interpreter, said during the joint press briefing with Rice.
Lavrov said Russia’s discussions with Iran have been ”about finding a way to implement'' the IAEA resolution. The IAEA said it would send the issue to the United Nations unless Iran's government halts all enrichment activities and abides by commitments to the IAEA, including full cooperation with inspectors.
The IAEA is meeting March 6-8 to review a report on Iran’s activities by IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the ElBaradei’s report “continues to raise troubling concerns” because it shows that Iran still is engaging in enrichment-related activities “in direct confrontation with the international community and the demands of the international community.”
“After this review is complete of the latest report, we expect that it will very shortly go to the Security Council, and then, those issues will be discussed before the Security Council,” as part of what McClellan described as a “new phase of diplomacy.”
Rice said “there is still time, of course, for the Iranians to react.”
She added that the United States is not advocating sanctions against Iran as a first step by the U.N. Security Council.
In addition to Iran, Rice said she and Lavrov discussed U.S.-Russia cooperation on global issues including the Middle East and so-called “frozen conflicts” involving the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions; Russia’s presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) nations; and domestic developments in Russia.
“I appreciate the candid and good spirit in which we discussed those issues and in which our questions have been answered,” Rice said.
Lavrov said he had expressed Russia’s concerns about “the slow process of Russia's WTO [World Trade Organization] accession since the United States is the only country of today which has not yet signed the protocol on Russia's WTO accession,” and also Russia’s desire that it be exempted from the requirements of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 links U.S. trade relations with many former communist countries to the rights of their citizens to emigrate freely. If a country is found to be restricting emigration rights, the U.S. president must issue an annual waiver for normal trade relations to continue.
“We would like to see Russia accede to the WTO,” Rice said. “We know that it wants to be a diversifying economy. And so it should be in the WTO.”
However, she added that “there are rules for accession to the WTO and we negotiate on the basis of those rules.” The Bush administration has to be able to certify to the U.S. Congress that Russia has met all WTO requirements, she said, adding “we want to be sure that it is an agreement that can meet that test.”
Asked about Russia’s meeting with leaders from Hamas, the newly elected leaders of the legislature in the Palestinian Authority, Lavrov said he was hopeful that the militant Palestinian group would endorse the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, known as the "road map."
Russia "heard from [Hamas] that they would be ready to express their position on the road map and to hopefully endorse the road map as drafted by the Quartet without any reservations," Lavrov said.
Russia intends “to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people in accordance with our past practice, using the channels existing under the United Nations and World Bank auspices,” he said.
The transcript of the briefing is available on the State Department Web site.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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