AFP, Moscow, April 22, 2010  – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Thursday that the UN Security Council cannot wait indefinitely for Iran to heed the warnings of the international community on its nuclear programme.
’If we are talking about a situation where everything stays as it is, in a dead-end state, then I don’t think the Security Council will observe this for too long without intervening,’ Lavrov said in televised comments.
Lavrov made the remarks at a joint press conference with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.
’We have a position that follows, first of all and principally, the aim of carrying out those decisions that were taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which were then supported by the UN Security Council,’ Lavrov said.
The comments were apparently a reference to an IAEA-brokered plan to defuse the Iranian nuclear crisis by taking low-enriched uranium out of Iran for further enrichment and processing abroad.
Tehran has so far refused to implement the IAEA plan, angering Russia, one of the plan’s main sponsors.
Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, in harsh comments on Thursday criticized Iran’s ’stubborn lack of desire’ to ’listen to the calls of the international community’ and obey past Security Council resolutions.
The situation ’seems to make the passing of a new resolution on sanctions inevitable,’ Rybakov told the Echo of Moscow radio station.
In recent weeks Moscow has signaled that it may join forces with Washington in the UN Security Council to support a new round of sanctions against the Islamic republic.
The United States and its allies fear that Iran may be seeking to produce nuclear weapons under the cover of what Tehran insists is a civilian energy programme.