Russia , China oppose new Iran sanctions

TEHRAN,Nov.12 (MNA) -- Russia and China have expressed opposition to the imposition of any new UN sanctions on Iran and say more sanctions will not achieve the desired result. The two veto-wielding UN Security Council members announced their stances after Western governments said they would prefer additional Security Council measures against Tehran since the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report, released on Tuesday, claimed Iran appeared to have worked on designing a nuclear weapon. Iran has called the new report politically motivated, unbalanced, and unprofessional. On Wednesday, Russia vehemently criticized the IAEA report, saying it contained no new evidence and was being used to undercut efforts to reach a diplomatic solution, Reuters reported. Sharpening opposition to any new sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, senior Russian diplomats said further punitive measures would be "destructive" and urged a revival of talks between Tehran and global powers. "According to our initial evaluations, there is no fundamentally new information in the report," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We are talking about a compilation of known facts, given a politicized tone," it said, adding that interpretations of the report brought to mind the use of faulty intelligence to seek support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Russia's point man for Iran diplomacy, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said Moscow opposed "strengthening sanctions pressure on Iran" and is trying to bring other nations in line with that stance, Itar-Tass reported. "We are showing them the faulty and destructive nature of that policy," Ryabkov said. Russia has grudgingly approved four rounds of UN sanctions on Iran after watering them down, with China. But it has criticized Western states for imposing additional punitive measures and signaled in recent months that it would oppose a new push for sanctions in the Security Council. Russia is instead calling for a step-by-step process under which existing sanctions would be eased in return for actions by Tehran to dispel international concerns.