Sat, August 18, 2012
MOSCOW, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- Hysterical rhetoric and confrontational remarks over the Iran nuclear issue would turn out to be counterproductive, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
In an interview with Sky News Arabia, Lavrov said that he did not consider the recent talks between Iran and the P5+1 group and the European Union in Istanbul and Moscow a failure.
The P5+1 group consists of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, and Germany.
"Those who say that this is a failure simply want to step up hysterical rhetoric. That's wrong. Confrontational contexts in this issue would be counterproductive," Lavrov said.
"I think we can speak of progress, though small, at the talks in Istanbul, Moscow and during the subsequent contacts, because the sides stated their approaches very clearly and in detail, as never before," he added.
The top Russian diplomat stressed that negotiations are the only way to solve the Iran nuclear issue, and warned that the main problem in the region is that Iran has no equal role in the negotiations.
"Israel, the United States and many of the Gulf countries have their complaints about Iran. But if these complaints are used to demand a total isolation of Iran and to keep it away from events concerning the security problems in the region, we will simply lose a lever to influence the situation," Lavrov said.
Moscow hopes that all those with an influence over the events could be included in the negotiation process, he added.
The United States and its Western allies have long accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. The P5+1 countries have held many rounds of negotiations with Iran on the issue, with no substantial progress achieved so far.
