US diplomat calls for curbs on trade with Tehran
PARIS (AFP) — A top US diplomat Wednesday urged Iran's major commercial partners in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to scale back their trade ties with Tehran as punishment for its atomic drive.
"It is important that major trading partners of Iran, Japan and South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia reduce the level of trade, reduce the sense of business as usual with Iran," Nicholas Burns, number three in the State Department, told a conference at the American University of Paris.
Burns said it was vital that Security Council members Russia and China "meet their commitments... to diminish their level of trade -- China's is increasing -- with Iran and stop selling arms" to the Islamic republic.
Western powers suspect that Iran is trying to build up a secret nuclear weapons capability. Iran insists that its nuclear programme is aimed only at producing energy.
In Paris for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy's diplomatic advisor Jean-David Levitte and other top officials, Burns repeated a call for European nations to step up the pressure over Iran's nuclear programme.
"We hope that Europe will follow the lead of France and Britain on this very important question," he said.
The European Union is considering additional sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, following a demand by France backed by Britain, but Germany and Italy who have important economic interests in Iran are reluctant.
"Conflict with Iran is not inevitable. It is not desirable and we believe that diplomacy can succeed, it must succeed, but it will only succeed if all of us are trying to make it stronger," Burns said.
Burns defended the US decision to take additional sanctions targeting Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused of spreading weapons of mass destruction, and three Iranian state-owned banks.
"These sanctions are designed to do one thing: to strengthen a faltering, weakened international diplomatic effort to deny Iran a nuclear capability."
"They are designed to help diplomacy to succeed and to avoid a situation in the future where we are left with unpalatable options."
