AFP, Rome, June 9, 2010 – New UN sanctions imposed on Iran Wednesday over its contested nuclear drive are a ’strong political signal’, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.
’From New York has come a very strong political signal: the international community cannot accept that Iran acquires nuclear weapons, embarking on a course of proliferation that would have serious effects on regional and global stability,’ he said.
’The sanctions are not an end in themselves,’ Frattini said in a statement, but ’should serve to bring Iran to the negotiation table’.
Italy remains convinced that only a diplomatic solution could resolve that international standoff over the Iranian nuclear issue, the minister said.
The UN Security Council slapped a fourth set of punitive measures on Iran earlier Wednesday, hoping to persuade the Islamic republic to curb its suspect nuclear programme by widening military and financial sanctions.