Clinton asks Gulf to pressure Iran

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday urged Muslim leaders to help halt Iran's sensitive nuclear work and detected a possible shift in China toward supporting sanctions against Tehran.

At the start of a three-day Gulf visit, Mrs Clinton told Iran's neighbours it appeared increasingly evident Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons and warned the Revolutionary Guards' rising power poses "a direct threat" to all.

Frustrated that a year-long drive to engage Iran in nuclear and other talks has yielded little, President Barack Obama's administration last week imposed fresh unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

US officials also want the UN Security Council to draft new sanctions against a force they say runs Iran's nuclear programme, supports anti-US and anti-Israeli militants and cracks down on Iranian anti-government protesters.

"It's time for Iran to be held to account for its activities which do already and can continue to have destabilising effects," she said in a speech to the US-Islamic World Forum, set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I would like to figure out a way to handle it," Mrs Clinton said after voicing fears about "the rise of the influence and power" of the Revolutionary Guards. "Certainly, we don't want to be engaging while they're building their bomb."

During a regional tour that will also take her to Saudi Arabia, the chief US diplomat added to the US sense of urgency after Iran began last Tuesday to enrich uranium to 20 per cent purity while insisting its intent was peaceful.

"Iran leaves the international community little choice but to impose greater costs for its provocative steps," she said after talks with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, who is both foreign minister and Prime Minister.

"We are now working actively with our regional and international partners... to prepare and implement new measures to convince Iran to change its course," she said.

Mr Obama's National Security Adviser James Jones said earlier in Washington that the United States is pressing for "very tough" new sanctions against Iran this month, suggesting the move could help bring about "regime change".

Mrs Clinton also met in Doha with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose country has good ties with Iran and has repeatedly offered to serve as mediator on the nuclear issue.

Turkey's foreign minister is due to visit Iran in the coming week.

Mrs Clinton struck an upbeat note about support for sanctions among the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France.

She said Russia has said "publicly and privately that it can and will support sanctions," and detected a shift in the Chinese position.

"The weight is maybe beginning to move toward not wanting to be either isolated or inadvertently contributing to instability that would undermine their economic interests," she said.

She recalled China's investment stake in Iran and its oil imports from that country.

On the plane from Washington to Doha, Mrs Clinton's Middle East aide Jeffrey Feltman said Washington would ask for oil-rich Saudi Arabia's help in pressing China to join the US drive for sanctions against Iran.

But Mr Feltman neither confirmed nor denied suggestions the administration would ask the Saudis to offer China supply guarantees in return for winning Beijing's support for new UN sanctions.

Mrs Clinton is due to meet Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, in Riyadh on Monday.

In a follow-up to a speech Mr Obama gave in Egypt last October in which he called for a "new beginning" with the world's Muslims, Mrs Clinton shared US disappointment with the region about the failure to achieve a breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli peace process.