Foreign Ministers from Germany, Russia, China, the United
States, France and Britain are to hold talks in Berlin on Tuesday
on the Iranian nuclear program, the German Foreign
Ministry announced on Monday.
According to a statement issued by the ministry, at the
invitation of German Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei W. Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and European
Union (EU) High Representative Javier Solana will attend the
meeting.
"On the fringes of the meeting, Federal Minister Steinmeier will
conduct a number of bilateral talks," said the statement.
Washington and its EU allies are pushing for a third set of
United Nations sanctions against Iran for defying international
demands that it stop uranium enrichment activities that they fear
could be used to make a bomb.
In December last year, however, the U.S. administration's own
intelligence said Tehran had stopped an alleged secret nuclear
weapons program in 2003.
Iran has denied that it wants to build an atomic bomb, and
maintains that its nuclear program is a peaceful drive to produce
civilian energy.
(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2008)
