Response by S. Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, to a question by the media concerning the international efforts to settle the situation around the INP, January 23, 2012
80-23-01-2012
Question: As the EU imposed new sanctions on Iran, what steps Russia and the international community as a whole are ready to take to resolve the situation around the Iranian nuclear program?
S.Lavrov: We will keep everyone from any sudden actions and seek to resume the talks. In recent months, Russia has made great efforts to set up appropriate conditions for it. There are still opportunities, despite a number of steps unreasonably taken by the IAEA Director General. Then he took well-known facts and made a totally unsupported conclusion that Iran's nuclear program had a military dimension. Unilateral sanctions have never helped the cause. Granted that we worked out collective sanctions in the UN Security Council a year and a half ago, we should all stick to that policy – to add nothing to and remove nothing from our joint position. In spite of the complicating factors, we have quite a firm hope that the talks can be resumed in the nearest future. We cooperate with Iran within the framework of the “3 plus 3 group”. C. Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, will to contact S. Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Following the contacts, we will seek to establish specific dates for the resumption of the negotiating process.
