Six Powers Meet On Iran

Senior officials from permanent UN Security Council members Russia, China, France, Britain, and the United States, plus Germany, are in attendance.

Ahead of today's meeting, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad warned that Tehran would consider any move against its nuclear interests as a "hostile" act.

"If you continue making efforts to halt the progress of Iran's nuclear program [or] if you take any step against Iran's rights -- either in propaganda or international bodies -- the Iranian nation will consider this a hostile act," Ahmadinejad told an audience in the northern Mazandaran Province.

Russia has so far objected to tough sanctions to punish Tehran for its refusal to meet an August 31 UN deadline to abandon uranium enrichment.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said after talking with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on December 4 that progress had been made on the wording of a sanctions resolution.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the same day that deliberations among the major powers on what to do about Iran had been going on for far too long. U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, calling such a scenario "unacceptable."

Burns said he was not expecting any breakthrough in today's talks. He urged Russia and China to move closer to the U.S. and European positions on how best to convince Iran to abandon any ambitions to make nuclear weapons.

Foreign Minister Lavrov said ahead of today's meeting that imposing broad sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for pursuing uranium enrichment would be "irresponsible" and counterproductive. He reiterated Russian support for limited sanctions, saying any other strategy would achieve "opposite results."

Officials in Tehran have repeatedly countered that their nuclear program is solely peaceful.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has criticized Iran for obfuscation and has said it has not been convinced that the country's nuclear efforts are not aimed at developing weapons.

(Reuters)