Russia,China warn west against Sanctions on Iran

Moscow underlined that both Russia and China oppose any new sanctions on Iran, and reiterated the need for a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear issue.The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Russia and China, both permanent UN Security Council members with veto power, agree that Iran should not be subjected to new sanctions over its nuclear program. At a meeting in Moscow, Russian and Chinese diplomats expressed "the mutual conviction that the application of new, additional sanctions against Iran will not lead to the desired result," the ministry said in a statement. Earlier this week, the US and its allies sought to push Iran into corner through releasing an international report on Tehran's nuclear activities with a harsh and condemning tone, but they failed. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Yukiya Amano released a US-dictated report on Iran's nuclear activities on Tuesday, while many even in the West believe that the report carries the US tone and wording on an IAEA paper. Iran has blasted Amano for releasing such an unreal and biased report. Yet, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast informed that Tehran is still open to negotiations with the six world powers over the two sides differences over Iran's nuclear program. "We have always announced that we are ready for positive and useful negotiations but, as we have mentioned repeatedly, the condition for those talks to be successful is that we enter those negotiations with equal footing and respect for nations' rights," Mehman-Parast told the Arabic language al-Alam television. The two sides have already had several rounds of talks represented by Iran's chief negotiator Saeed Jalili and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.