The EU’s foreign policy chief says Iran must act immediately to ease international concerns about its nuclear program.
According to Ria Novosti, Catherine Ashton told reporters after a meeting with the G5+1 foreign ministers: “We discussed at length the need for Iran to take action urgently as we considered the Iranian nuclear issue.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters the meeting was aimed at finding ways to make both Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency find ways to resolve the problems.
The meeting between the British, Russian, American, Chinese, French and German foreign ministers and Catherine Ashton took place on the sidelines of the United Nation’s 67th general meeting, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had just called for the setting of red lines for Iran.
Western countries are concerned that Iran’s nuclear program might have a military component, but Iran denies all allegations and insists that all of its nuclear activities are peaceful.
The G5+1 has called for for an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. Iran says the enrichment program is to provide fuel for its research reactor.
However Iran’s IAEA representative recently said that the enrichment program is open for negotiations, so long as the G5+1 is willing to provide enriched uranium for reactors and the sanctions on Iran are eased.
