Russia Refuses to Discuss Imposing More UN Sanctions on Iran 
By Bill Varner
September 24, 2008
Bloomberg
Original Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoSLGEcwEwKI&refer=home

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Russia is refusing to discuss further United Nations sanctions to block Iran's nuclear ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a sign of continuing acrimony with the U.S. over last month's war in Georgia. 
Russia pulled out of a planned meeting on Iran tomorrow in New York with the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and the U.S., and Lavrov said the subject of sanctions didn't come up in a meeting he had late today in New York with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 
Lavrov, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, said further high-level talks on Iran wouldn't take place until ``some time down the road.'' He said it would ``take some time'' for Russia to calm down from the tensions with the U.S. over the Bush administration's support for Georgia. 
The U.S. and its European allies, who accuse Iran of using its nuclear program as cover for developing a weapon, are pressing for a fourth round of UN sanctions. Iran has rejected UN demands to halt its work on enriching uranium, which can be used to fuel a power station or form the core of a bomb. 
Rice and Lavrov agreed in their meeting only to consider the best way to signal to Iran and others that the six-nation negotiating bloc is ``intact'' and still working to control Iran's nuclear program, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said. 
``I would call it a polite, thorough exchange of views, where the disagreements were quite clear,'' Fried, who attended the meeting, said. ``There was not shouting, table-pounding, histrionics. The two ministers know each other well.'' 
Atomic Fuel 
Iran refuses to answer questions about possible nuclear- weapons activity and expanded its production of atomic fuel in its latest defiance of Security Council demands to halt uranium- enrichment work, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency said in a report last week. 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday and a one-hour news conference, said Iran won't yield to U.S. ``bullying'' and will move forward with what he said is the peaceful development of nuclear energy. 
Russia opposed the talks on Iran in part as a reaction to the cancellation of a series of Group of Eight meetings scheduled to be held over the next three months, Lavrov said. In a further indication of irritation with the West, Russia didn't attend a ministerial meeting of the Council of Europe held today in New York, according to Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin. 
``You can't have it both ways, punishing Russia by canceling meetings we share and at the same time expecting Russian cooperation on issues important to you,'' Lavrov said. ``It is not right to make important items on our agenda hostage.'' 
Lavrov was referring to G-8 meetings, to be held on subjects including the global food crisis and terrorism, which were postponed in reaction to Russia's military incursion into Georgia. 
He said Russia considers that the ``overriding goals of the U.S., Europeans, Russia and China ``remain valid.'' Yet he also said the International Atomic Energy Agency report didn't find Iran guilty of developing nuclear weapons, an allegation for which he said there was ``no evidence.''