AFP: The United States has raised concerns with India about its reported opposition to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, the State Department said Thursday. AFP
WASHINGTON – The United States has raised concerns with India about its reported opposition to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, the State Department said Thursday.
“We have registered our concerns with the Indian goverment of course,” Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told a Congressional hearing where legislators threatened to call for a review of Washington’s landmark civil nuclear cooperation pact with New Delhi.
Burns said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would also raise the issue in her meetings with her Indian counterpart Natwar Singh and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the UN Summit next week.
Singh reportedly said at a meeting with Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad earlier this week that New Delhi was opposed to referring Tehran to the UN Security Council, following US accusations that it was secretly trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian energy program.
US and European Union officials have warned they will push for Iran’s nuclear case to be sent to the Security Council — which could impose sanctions — if Tehran does not halt all nuclear fuel work and resume negotiations with the EU.
Iran denies harbouring secret plans to make nuclear bombs and says it has no intention of freezing uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant — where UN seals were broken and work resumed last month.
