NEW YORK (AFP) — The United States and five other powers on Tuesday called off plans for high-level talks here this week to debate further sanctions against Iran, after Russia complained of US attempts to "punish" it.
The cancellation of the meeting in New York involving US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came amid rising US-Russian tensions over the crisis in Georgia.
"There is not going to be a P5-plus-one ministers meeting" on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
The permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany were to meet here Thursday to consider possible further sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program, the French foreign ministry said this week.
However, McCormack said that Rice would hold a one-on-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here on Wednesday.
In Moscow, the Russian foreign ministry said earlier that Moscow was against the planned meeting of the six powers, referring to US attempts to "punish" Moscow, apparently over its August 8 incursion into Georgia.
The statement appeared to indicate it was walking away from the meeting.
It was also an official response to US suggestions that the United States and Russia could work together in some areas but not others, suggesting that Moscow was using the Iran nuclear issue against the United States.
"It would be very desirable for Washington to finally decide what it wants in its relations with Moscow. If it wants to punish Russia, this is one thing. If it agrees we have common interests... that is another," the ministry said.
"To use the words of Condoleezza Rice, you can't have it both ways," it added, referring to a phrase that the US secretary of state has used in criticising Russia's conflict with Georgia last month.
McCormack did not acknowledge that Georgia was the stumbling block, but said "we agree with them (the Russians) that the time is not right to have a meeting at the ministerial level."
The various State Department and foreign ministry "political directors can continue on their assignments regarding a future (UN) resolution," McCormack said.
The six political directors met in Washington last week.
The State Department issued a statement afterward saying the six were "committed to exploring possible further" UN Security Council sanction resolutions against Iran, which is already under three sets of UN sanctions.
But Russia said Saturday it had rejected US proposals for new UN Security Council measures against Iran. China said September 16 that UN-imposed sanctions would not resolve the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program.
Nonetheless, McCormack said "there is no question about the two track process. It remains in place."
He was referring to the carrot-and-stick approach to induce Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects is being used to build an atomic bomb but which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy.
Speaking in New York before the US announcement, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the possible cancelation of the ministerial meeting would make it "difficult" to bring pressure to bear on Iran.
"I hope and expect that this is not the end of" these efforts to convince Iran to abandon sensitive nuclear fuel work, he said.
"But there is no question that without such a meeting, which we urgently need in the current situation, it will be more complicated to bring the necessary international pressure to bear," Steinmeier said.
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