Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim began a two-day visit in Tehran, where he will hold talks on Iran’s nuclear program as the Islamic republic fights a U.S.- led drive for a fourth round of sanctions.
Amorim, who arrived today in the Iranian capital, is scheduled to meet his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki as well as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, the state- run Fars news agency reported.
Mottaki met with International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano and Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger yesterday in Vienna. Iran is meeting with UN Security Council members to avert more sanctions over the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear work.
“Security Council members have a very important decision to make,” Mottaki said at a briefing in the Austrian capital. “Sanctions would be an unfair, unjust punishment of an innocent country.”
Amorim’s visit will also prepare a trip next month by Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to Fars. Besides the meetings with officials from Austria and Brazil, which are both security council members, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently travelled to Uganda, a third member of the body.
The U.S. and its European allies are pushing for a fourth round of United Nations measures to stop what it says are Iranian attempts to develop nuclear weapons. Iran rejects the claim saying its nuclear program is purely civilian.