Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Iran's Ahmadinejad to visit China to discuss nuclear issue - @Reuters

BEIJING | Tue May 22, 2012 10:55pm EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will head to China in June for a regional security meeting, where he will discuss his country's nuclear programme with Chinese President Hu Jintao, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting hosted by Beijing in June, China's Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told reporters at a briefing. The SCO is a regional security forum that groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and which Iran is attending as an observer.

The summit will likely be overshadowed by the presence of Ahmadinejad, whose country is at the centre of a standoff with the West over its nuclear programme.

"Certainly, during his meeting with President Hu, the Iran nuclear issue will be an important talking point," Cheng said.

Ahmadinejad's visit to China takes on particular significance as China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has resisted U.S. demands for sanctions on Iran. China is a major buyer of Iranian crude oil.

Iran is under increasing pressure to curb its nuclear programme in a transparent way and its security council chief is due to hold talks in Iraq on Wednesday with six world powers - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

Asked about the new U.S. sanctions and proposed EU sanctions against Iran, Cheng said: "We strictly follow the relevant U.N. resolutions on the Iran nuclear issue. But at the same time, China opposes using bilateral sanctions to force other countries or to harm other countries from normal trading with Iran."

In late May, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a package of new economic sanctions on Iran's oil sector. [ID:nL1E8GLMRV] The sanctions add to a raft of punitive measures by the United States and the European Union aimed at shrinking Iran's oil revenues to force it to halt its nuclear programme.

Although Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned Tehran in January against any effort to acquire nuclear weapons, Beijing has generally been reticent about publicly warning Iran or even firmly suggesting that Tehran might want to develop the means to develop nuclear weapons.

China has repeatedly urged a negotiated solution to the dispute over Tehran's atomic activities, which Western governments say appear aimed at mastering the means to make nuclear weapons. Tehran says those activities are peaceful.

World powers will test Iran's readiness under pressure of sanctions to scale back its nuclear programme at the Wednesday talks aimed at easing a decade-old standoff and averting the threat of a Middle East war.

India, Mongolia and Pakistan are the other observers to the SCO.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Eric Meijer)