Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov says the military option and isolation will not help diffuse tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.
“We see no alternative to a political-diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear problem,” Lavrov said on Tuesday.
Speaking to students at the State Institute of International Relations in the Russian capital of Moscow, Lavrov said, “The best means to apply outside pressure on Iran’s decision-making process lie not in isolating Tehran or threats of resorting to force, but in involving it in an important international cooperation.”
“This is the only way to ensure stability and security in the region,” he added.
Russia, who is to attend a meeting between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany on Wednesday, has distanced itself from the US, Israel and their European allies — Britain, France and Germany -, which claim the Islamic Republic has military objectives in its nuclear enrichment program.
Tehran, however, says the only aim of its nuclear program is the civilian applications of the technology, adding that Iran would have no use for such weapons as it considers them ‘obsolete.’
Iran on Tuesday announced that it had prepared an updated nuclear package and was ready to hold talks with world powers on its nuclear program
The package will try to ‘remove common concerns [about the nuclear program] in the international arena’, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told reporters on Tuesday.
