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Syria, Iran Meet as Deadline Looms on Nuke Package
The leaders of Iran and Syria leaders are meeting Saturday in the face of a looming deadline for Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program and accept an incentives package.
Syria is Iran’s closest Arab ally, and Iran’s state television has said Syrian President Bashar Assad is expected to discuss Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in his meeting with Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In a statement posted Saturday on the presidential Web site, Ahmadinejad said Iran will not retreat “one iota” from its nuclear rights, Reuters reported.
“In whichever negotiations we take part … it is unequivocally with the view to the realization of Iran’s nuclear right, and the Iranian nation would not retreat one iota from its rights,” he said in the statement.
The United States has reaffirmed the weekend deadline and also warned Iran of new sanctions if the country chooses to reject the package, the AFP reported.
“We want and we expect a response this weekend,” State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said. “They were given two weeks. The two weeks is up this weekend.”
After Iran neglected to give a clear response to an offer made by world powers in Geneva on July 19, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the country could expect more sanctions to be imposed by the United States and the European Union as early as late August or September and may then be hit with a fourth sanctions resolution at the U.N. Security Council. “We will see what Iran does in two weeks, but I think the diplomatic process now has a new kind of energy to it,” she said. “If they do not decide to suspend then we will be in a situation where we have to return to the Security Council.”
The AFP quoted White House press secretary Dana Perino as saying “Negative consequences await if they don’t have a positive response to our very generous incentives package, and that would possibly come in the form of sanctions.”
Though some of the United States’ European Union partners in the push to end Iran’s nuclear activities may not insist on such a strict deadline, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged the country to stop playing for time and deliver a “clear answer.”
“I appeal again to the Iranian side no longer to play for time, but to give us a usable answer to our offers — stop dallying,” Steinmeier was quoted as saying in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel.
Iran denies the charge and says uranium enrichment is only for electricity production, and Ahmadinejad said Friday his country would use force against its “enemies” to defend its nuclear drive, state television reported.
Source: Fox News
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