Push for new Iran sanctions defended

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - The government said on Wednesday it would press for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities despite a U.S. report saying Tehran had halted a weapons programme, but China said it wanted a negotiated solution.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said after talks with his Chinese counterpart in London the origin of a proposed new U.N. sanctions resolution lay in the "defiance by Iran of the international community in respect of uranium enrichment".

"That defiance remains the case today," he told a joint news conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Enriched uranium can be used to create energy, but also atomic bombs.

Miliband had been asked whether a new U.S. intelligence report saying Tehran had given up its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 made it harder for Britain and China to find common ground on a new U.N. sanctions resolution.

The U.S. report contradicted assertions by U.S. President George W. Bush that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran says its programme has only peaceful civilian aims.

Miliband noted Britain and China, both permanent U.N. Security Council members, backed a decision in September to agree on more sanctions against Iran if reports by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana did not show a "positive outcome".

Yang stressed China wanted a diplomatic solution.

"We hope the Iranian nuclear issue will get eventually resolved appropriately through peaceful and diplomatic means," he said through an interpreter.