Major powers discuss Iran diplomacy, pressure: US

WASHINGTON/MUNICH (AFP/Reuters) - A senior US diplomat held a conference call on Friday with envoys from China, Russia and Europe who are trying to curb Irans nuclear ambitions, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
Crowley said William Burns, the State Departments number three, discussed both the pressure track and the negotiation track in a 90-minute conference call with diplomats from China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany.
Crowley said China was represented by its assistant secretary of state for arms control, a level of representation he said Washington is satisfied with.
They took stock of the recent comments by Iran but also continued to evaluate potential actions on the pressure track, Crowley said.
Ahmadinejad said in a television interview on Tuesday that Tehran would have no problem sending abroad its stocks of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to be further purified into fuel.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said clarification was needed from Iran on its latest offer but said Friday that Tehran has failed to give a proper response to the deal and sanctions should be studied.
She said that the US will continue to reach out to China and other partners as it looks at ways to impose sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. Pressure from the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany, the P5+1, had helped move negotiations forward, she told reporters.
Addressing the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said that Iran has not shut the door on a UN-brokered offer to send uranium abroad for enrichment, and diplomacy remains the best way to resolve this issue, which has entered a crucial stage, reiterating that the issue should be solved by peaceful means and called for more dialogue between the parties involved.
Reinforcing Beijings position, the Minister said that China wanted another meeting of the five permanent member countries of the UN Security Council plus Germany, the so-called P5+1, a group of major powers which has been trying to resolve the Iran dispute, to discuss the question again.
Earlier, Russia, in a signal Moscow may be eyeing a tougher line on the Islamic Republic, said UN Security Council members will discuss Iran if it fails to act constructively in a row over its nuclear work.
We confirmed that if we do not see a constructive answer from Iran, we will have to discuss this in the UN Security Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at a news conference with his German counterpart in Berlin.
He added that he still hoped to find a diplomatic solution.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Iran had used delaying tactics instead of taking action.
For the past two years Iran has repeatedly bluffed and played tricks, Westerwelle told Deutschlandfunk radio. It has played for time and of course we in the international community cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran.
Lavrov said he planned to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which was to start later on Friday, and that he saw a chance to narrow differences with Iran in talks.