US welcomes Turkey’s efforts over Iran issue

The United States welcomes Turkey's efforts to bring Tehran "to a more reasonable position," according to a senior advisor with the U.S. State Department.

"We believe the government of Turkey shares our objective of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. We appreciate the hard work that Turkey has put in in trying to persuade Iran to adopt a more reasonable position," Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday.

Einhorn said Turkey and the U.S. sometimes differed on tactics, such as Turkey's joining with Brazil and Iran in the Tehran Declaration in May.

"They supported what we considered to be an unacceptable version of a proposal we supported back in October on refueling the Tehran research reactor. We didn't appreciate the timing of that because it was on the eve of voting on the U.N. Security Council resolution, and perhaps some of the participants had in mind to derail that vote on a Security Council resolution," Einhorn said.

"So sometimes we disagree with Turkey on tactics, but we believe their motivation is good,” he said. “They want to solve this Iran nuclear issue just as we do."

US to press China and UAE

Starting next week, top U.S. officials would fan out to China, the United Arab Emirates and other key countries in support of tighter sanctions against Iran, Einhorn said. "China is of concern to us in this regard.”

Einhorn said he and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Daniel Glaser would visit China at the end of August, as part of a push to "raise this [concern] at the highest levels."

"We need for them to enforce the Security Council resolutions conscientiously and we also need for them not to 'backfill' when responsible countries have distanced themselves from Iran," he said.

Glaser and Einhorn were first bound for Japan and South Korea next week as part of a push by Washington to get its partners in Asia, the Middle East and South America to tighten the vice on Iran over its suspicious nuclear program.

A top U.S. Treasury official in charge of sanctions, Stuart Levey, will head to the U.A.E., Lebanon, and Bahrain next month, while another official will travel to Brazil and Ecuador, the department reported.

Joseph Christoff, a top international affairs and trade official at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Congress's investigative arm, said China had been "aggressive" in investing in Iran's energy sector despite the sanctions.

He told the same hearing that the United States had to "turn [its] attention" to China because international and unilateral sanctions were "not changing their behavior."

"The Chinese will argue that they have important security needs [related to obtaining sufficient amounts of energy to satisfy their booming economy],” said Einhorn. “In our view they are overachieving in terms of their energy security needs."

"We think they have to rebalance their priorities," said Einhorn, who underlined that China "is going to be the focus of very high-level attention over the next weeks and months" on the issue of Iran.

China, meanwhile, said it opposed tough new sanctions imposed by the European Union on Iran over its contested nuclear programme, again calling for more talks to resolve the standoff. "China disapproves of the unilateral sanctions put in place by the EU against Iran," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement.

"We hope the relevant parties will adhere to diplomatic means on the issue, and properly resolve the issue through talks and negotiation," she said.

Christoff also called for "a concerted focus on the United Arab Emirates," which has historically close ties to Iran and "is now the number one exporter of goods and services [to the Islamic Republic].”

The lawmakers were weighing the effectiveness of recent legislation aimed at sharply tightening the economic grip on Iran over what the West charges is a covert nuclear weapons program but which Tehran insists is a civilian power project.

The U.S. has hailed a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, as well as fresh sanctions adopted by the U.S. Congress, and punitive steps taken by the European Union, Australia and Canada.

Compiled from AA and AFP reports by the Daily News staff.