Germany says six power talks to show unity on Iran

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday a meeting of six big powers next Tuesday aims to show international resolve not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons technology.

"There are open questions which Iran urgently needs to resolve to reestablish lost trust. It remains the case that the international community cannot and will not permit nuclear weapons technology to be developed in this region," he said.

"We will be meeting in Berlin in a few days time with the respective Security Council members to debate how we can express demonstrable unity on these questions in the future," Steinmeier told reporters before talks with International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei.

The West fears Tehran is secretly seeking an atom bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is only for power generation and a recent U.S. intelligence estimate said it had stopped an active nuclear arms drive in 2003, compounding disagreement among the six powers over the next steps in the stand-off.

Steinmeier and his counterparts from the five permanent member of the U.N. Security Council are expected to join the Berlin talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that new United Nations sanctions against Iran would only discredit the U.N. Security Council, saying they would be based on political pressure and not legal issues.

"If the world realises that the council takes illegal measures ... it would destroy the reputation of the council," Ahmadinejad told Al Jazeera television in remarks translated into Arabic.

"It would better for them (world powers) to ... drop the issue from the Security Council's agenda," he added.