China favors diplomatic solution to Iran nuclear issue
(chinadaily.com.cn - agencies)
Updated: 2006-02-07 15:18

"It's not the end of the road," Annan said of the Security Council referral. "I hope that in between, Iran will take steps that will help create an environment and confidence-building measures that will bring the partners back to the negotiating table."

In his brief report, ElBaradei cited E. Khalilipour, vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying: "From the date of this letter, all voluntarily suspended non-legally binding measures including the provisions of the Additional Protocol and even beyond that will be suspended."

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, claps during a ceremony at the 13th Iranian world prize for Book of the Year, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 6, 2006. [AP]

Calling on the agency to sharply reduce the number of inspectors in Iran, Khalilipour added: "All the Agency's containment and surveillance measures which were in place beyond the normal Agency safeguards measures should be removed by mid-February 2006."

Earlier, Russia's foreign minister warned against threatening Iran after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly agreed with an interviewer at the German daily newspaper Handelsblatt that all options, including military response, remained on the table.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for talks to continue with Tehran, adding: "I think that at the current stage, it is important not to make guesses about what will happen and even more important not to make threats."

U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the UN Security Council to impose strict sanctions on Iran if it fails to comply with U.N. resolutions and arms agreements and warned that inaction would greatly increase the chances of military conflict.

Lugar nonetheless stressed that the United States favors a diplomatic solution.

"Diplomatic and economic confrontations are preferable to military ones," Lugar said. But he cautioned that "in the field of nonproliferation, decisions delayed over the course of months and years may be as harmful as no decisions at all."