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NEW YORK: Six major powers were meeting on Thursday to launch hard bargaining on new UN sanctions against Iran over its suspect nuclear programme as US and Russian leaders warned Tehran's defiance would not be tolerated.
Envoys of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States and Germany were meeting behind closed doors later Thursday to discuss a US draft resolution that would slap sanctions on Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards believed to be involved in nuclear proliferation activities.
China, which for weeks had resisted discussing in earnest the specific proposals agreed by the United States and its key European western allies, finally relented and agreed to join the discussions.
"China will participate in the relevant discussions," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing Thursday.
However he added that Beijing, which has close energy ties with Tehran and last week played host to the Islamic republic's chief nuclear negotiator, "still believes dialogue and consultation are the best way to solve the nuclear issue."
The United States and its Western allies believe that Tehran is using uranium enrichment as a cover to build nuclear weapons, a claim the Iranians deny.
In Prague, US and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday warned Iran of possible sanctions shortly after signing a landmark disarmament deal in Prague.
The two leaders said Iran could expect sanctions if it maintains its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and cooperate with UN atomic watchdog inspectors amid Western suspicions that it is seeking a bomb.
Obama called for "smart" and "strong" sanctions by the United Nations, which in May will hold a review conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
And Medvedev said at a joint press conference that "we cannot close our eyes" to Tehran "not reacting to an array of constructive compromise proposals."
"The Chinese are an active party to the (sanctions) negotiations in New York," US deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said from Prague. "There is a multilateral negotiation taking place about the package of sanctions that we aim to pass this spring."
And Michael McFaul, a special assistant to Obama, said the process "took a step forward today."
"We discussed the categories of a new resolution. We are into the heart of discussing what should be in the resolution," he added. "We had specific discussions where we talked about what should be in the resolution and what should not."
The 15-member Security Council, including China, had already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
But Iran's hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that he would not beg the world powers not to slap the Islamic republic with new UN sanctions.
"When the enemy says we want to impose sanctions on you we should say go ahead and do it. Of course we do not like sanctions .... but when they talk about it we won't beg them (not to do it)," he said as quoted by the Mehr news agency. - AFP/de
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