The United States and France Friday urged Iran to resume negotiations on its nuclear activities, and reaffirmed a threat to bring Tehran before the UN Security Council over the issue.
"We have to have a very strong message that of course there is always the course of negotiation ... but there is also the course of the Security Council," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after talks in Paris.
"It is a course that is available to the international community and it is therefore important that Iran negotiate in good faith," she said.
A spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac said that he and Rice agreed that "the perspective of an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons is unacceptable." But Chirac said that "it is necessary to continue the way of dialogue started by Germany, Britain and France in close concertation with Russia, in complete openness with the US, and with full respect by Iran of the Paris Accord" of November 2004, the spokesman said.
Under the Paris Accord Tehran agreed to suspend its enrichment of uranium which the Europeans and the United States suspect could be used for nuclear weapons.
On September 24 the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution on Iran's nuclear programme which - while falling short of an open call for the issue to be taken to the UN Security Council - sets out the steps that could lead there. Since then Tehran has indicated it is willing to resume talks with the European three.
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