World powers meet on Iran crisis

BERLIN (Reuters) - Six world powers gather in Berlin on Thursday to discuss the next steps in dealing with Iran's nuclear program, with Russia and China looking for assurances that there are no plans to use force against Tehran.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a "presidential statement" calling on Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment program, which can produce fuel for atom bombs. It also requests a report in 30 days from the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna on Iran's cooperation with the agency's demands.

The Council statement was the product of weeks of negotiations among the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States. The final text was softened to remove language Moscow and Beijing feared could lead to punitive measures.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Thursday's edition of the Handelsblatt business daily he wanted to show a united front at the talks.

"I'm confident that a joint position will be possible," he said. "For us it's about having the greatest possible unity in the international community. A similar meeting in London on January 31 achieved important progress."

Then, the five permanent members jointly agreed to report Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear activities.

On Wednesday, Tehran's ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif, said Iran would not bow to international threats to give up its right to nuclear energy, adding his country was "allergic to pressure."

The Islamic republic says its only wants civilian nuclear power and does not want atomic bombs as the West believes.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said neither Moscow nor Beijing would tolerate the use of force.

"As many of our European colleagues have said and as our Chinese friends have said many times, any ideas of resolving the matter by compulsion and force are extremely counterproductive and cannot be supported," Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Interfax.

FIRST STEP

The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Britain and the United States and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana are due to meet at 0900 GMT in Berlin.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the goal of Thursday's meeting was to map out future strategy.

"The intent is to allow the ministers to look out over the horizon on the Iran issue ... over the medium to long term on how to deal diplomatically with this regime and to get them back into the mainstream of the non-proliferation regime," he said.

One EU diplomat said the U.S. and EU diplomats would be discussing with their Russian and Chinese colleagues a strategy outlined in a letter leaked to the media earlier this month by John Sawers, a leading British diplomat.

Sawers said the non-legally-binding presidential statement should be followed by a binding resolution based on Chapter VII of the U.N. charter, which would make compliance enforceable with economic sanctions.

"We may also need to remove one of the Iranian arguments that the suspension called for is 'voluntary'. We could do both by making the voluntary suspension a mandatory requirement to the Security Council, in a Resolution we would aim to adopt (in) ... early May," Sawers said in the widely-circulated letter.

Iran's resumption of enrichment -- a process that could produce fuel for atomic power plants or bombs -- prompted the EU in January to break off 2-1/2 years of talks with Iran and to back a U.S. demand to refer the Iranian nuclear dossier to the U.N. Security Council.

The "EU3" -- Germany, France and Britain -- have said they were willing to resume talks with Iran but only if Tehran re-suspended all enrichment-related activities.

In Berlin, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will also meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss Iran and other issues before heading to France and Britain.