Iran letting chances for dialogue slip, Russia says

Russia yesterday said that Iran was letting the opportunity for dialogue with the international community slip away and warned that the Islamic Republic could face new sanctions.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remarks, after a meeting between President Dmitry Medvedev and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appeared to indicate frustration with Iran over its failure to allay fears about its nuclear programme.

But they fell short of support for the "aggressive sanctions" President Barack Obama has said Washington would pursue, and Mr Lavrov suggested Iran's nuclear activities pose no imminent threat.

"The reports that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) director general publishes on a regular basis contain very precise assessments that do not give reason for any sort of alarm," Mr Lavrov said through an interpreter.

"But that does not mean that we are satisfied with Iranian actions," he said. "What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, systematic, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away."

"As President Medvedev has said, sanctions rarely work, but situations can arise when they are unavoidable, and we do not rule out that such a situation may arise in relation to Iran," Interfax reported Mr Lavrov as saying.

Later yesterday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Mrs Clinton that Russia could sign up to a sanctions resolution on Iran, Russian news agencies quoted a senior Putin aide as saying.

Mr Putin's deputy chief of staff, Yuri Ushakov, was quoted as saying that Mr Putin had affirmed that a sanctions resolution "was possible", Itar-Tass news agency reported.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich gave his appraisal of the situation in Iran and underlined that such a situation (involving Russian support of a sanctions resolution) was possible," RIA state news agency quoted Mr Ushakov as saying.

But Mr Putin also cautioned Mrs Clinton that sanctions "do not always help to resolve such issues and that sometimes they can have a counterproductive impact," Mr Ushakov was quoted as saying by RIA.