G7 urges Iran to agree to nuclear deal and warns Russia against invasion of Ukraine
The G7 said Sunday that time was running out for Iran to reach an agreement to curb its nuclear ambitions and warned Russia of “massive” consequences if it invades Ukraine.
Foreign ministers from the world’s richest nations held a two-day meeting in Liverpool, northwest England, seeking to present a strong united front against global threats.
On Iran, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, from G7 host Britain, said the resumption of talks in Vienna was the “last chance for the Islamic Republic to come to the negotiating table with a serious resolution.” .
“There is still time for Iran to come and agree on this agreement,” he told a news conference.
The final statement from the talks said that Iran “must stop its nuclear escalation and seize the opportunity to conclude an agreement, while this is possible.”
Negotiations resumed on Thursday to try to reactivate the 2015 accord between Iran and world powers, which the United States withdrew under Donald Trump in 2018.
Iran claims it only wants to develop a civilian capability, but Western powers say its enriched uranium arsenal goes much further and could be used to develop a nuclear weapon.
US President Joe Biden has said he is ready to return to the deal, and Iranian officials say they are serious about his commitment to the talks.
But Tehran has been accused of backtracking on the progress made earlier this year and buying time.
Truss’s comments mark the first time that a signatory to the original agreement has given an ultimatum for the talks.
Accumulation of Russian troops
Britain, which will hand over the G7 presidency to Germany next year, described the two-day conference in Liverpool, northwest England, as an opportunity to confront authoritarianism around the world.
In addition to Iran, the concentration of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine dominated the talks, given fears of a possible invasion by the former Soviet state.
>> On the Ukraine front, reports of Russian troop surge raise concern
Truss said there was “a very united voice … that there will be massive consequences for Russia in the event of an incursion into Ukraine.”
In the final communiqué, the ministers unanimously endorsed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and praised President Volodymyr Zelensky for Kiev’s “restraining stance”.
All options, including far-reaching political and economic sanctions, are on the table if Russia ignores a diplomatic solution, the officials said.
A senior US State Department official said Saturday that “a large number of democratic countries” were ready to join the G7 nations of Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States in taking action. .
Biden earlier this week held a virtual summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to voice the concerns of the West.
He will send his top diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs to Kiev and Moscow next week for follow-up talks with senior officials.
Russia says the military build-up is a defensive measure against Ukraine moving closer to NATO.
Pope Francis also asked that the situation be “resolved through serious international dialogue and not with weapons”, after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
China looks out
From Liverpool, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flies to Southeast Asia as part of Washington’s push for “peace, security and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Britain’s G7 presidency this year has been dominated by responding to alleged widespread domestic rights abuses in Beijing, as well as progressive authoritarianism in its former colony, Hong Kong.
Earlier this week, a panel of human rights experts and lawyers in London said that China had committed genocide in its Xinjiang region by imposing population controls on the Uighur Muslim minority.
Beijing rejected the report, accusing it of “anti-China” bias.
The ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) participated in the talks with the G7 for the first time, with great concern for security in the South China Sea.
Truss said she and her counterparts were concerned about China’s “coercive economic policies” and needed to counter them with their own alternative initiatives.
“What we want to do is build the scope of investment, the scope of economic trade of like-minded freedom-loving democracies,” he added.
“That is why we are stepping up our investment in low- and middle-income countries.”
At a meeting of G7 leaders in June in Cornwall, southwest England, the group unveiled plans for what it said was a more equitable global infrastructure fund than the China Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s trillion-dollar scheme has been widely criticized for burdening smaller and poorer countries, particularly in Africa, with unmanageable debt.
(AFP)
