Russian rebuke

United States, Britain and France have been pressing for tough steps against Iran fearing its nuclear aspirations which can pose a danger to world peace, while Russia and China have argued that a hard line might backfire .The meeting was called after Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran was pursuing the enrichment of uranium on an industrial scale, which could allow it to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons. The puffed up enrichment of the batch of uranium that Iran trotted though was only 3.5 percent. The experts however dismissing serious threats from the Iranian side claim that the nation currently possess a cascade of 164 centrifuges at Natanz, and will require at least 10 times that to achieve enough bomb grade uranium-235 to make a proper device.

Coming to the meeting, the statements from the US Undersecretary State Nicholas Burns clearly render the split among the member nations. Burns told reporters, "Nearly every country is considering some form of sanctions, and this is a new development. Every country said that some type of action had to be taken to, in effect, erect a barrier to Iran's progress. So the challenge for us will be what we all can agree on." Burn also advocated "a greater sense of urgency" among the major powers about Iran's ambitions.

In a surprise development, an Iranian delegation appeared later in the day in Moscow for talks with officials from the so-called EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- although a spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow said there were no major breakthroughs. "The Iranians set out their position and we listened carefully but there were no significant breakthroughs," the embassy spokesman said. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi earlier said Tuesday's meeting had been "totally fruitless".

The United States has been urging the Security Council to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN charter, which allows the world body to decide on measures, including the use of force, "to maintain or restore international peace and security." The States also called on countries to end all nuclear cooperation with Iran and to bring to a halt all arms exports to Iran. The Russia however declared that it will determine its reaction depending on the contents of the report by IAEA .As said by Russian side” IAEA has ideas of what is happening and what is not happening in Iran. We'll be relying on these evaluations. "Mohammad Elbaradei, directory of the United Nations (UN) nuclear watch-dog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is due to visit Iran Friday.

Russia has been engaged in preliminary talks with Iran to build five more reactors and relishes other trade interests with Iran—namely in arms. Moscow sold a batch of missiles to Tehran last December .The nation clearly maintained its position against the use of Chapter 7 at the meetings, fearing it would almost certainly lead to military action, according to a diplomatic source familiar with the discussions who spoke on traditional conditions of anonymity. Yet Russia has repeatedly denied that its outlook is biased. The head of Russia's nuclear power agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, denied that Russian cooperation with Iran in constructing the Bushehr nuclear power plant would threaten the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.

With the hope for a peaceful solution to Iran's 'nuclear problem' literally fading with each passing day the talks about military attack by US to curb the stubborn foe have escalated too. The last week’s issue of the “New Yorker’ magazine reported that the Pentagon is looking at a variety of strike plans. President George Bush immediate impulses however dismissed the article calling it a “wild speculation.” But when questioned again on Monday about a military option to de-fuse the crisis, Bush said all options are on the table. Bush refused to rule out nuclear strikes if diplomacy failed to curb the volatile Islamic Republic's atomic ambitions and said he would discuss Iran's nuclear activities with China's President Hu Jintao, who has been cool on sanctions, during his U.S. visit.

Iran's defiance of world pressure to halt its program drove oil prices to a record high of .8 a barrel, raising fears of a cut in supplies from the world's fourth biggest crude exporter.