Use Security Council to pressure Iran: Rice

Berlin, Feb 22: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday world powers planned to use all available channels and the UN Security Council to get Iran to halt its sensitive nuclear work and start negotiations.

''We reconfirmed that we will use our available channels and the Security Council to try and achieve that goal,'' Rice said after a breakfast meeting in Berlin with the foreign ministers of Germany, Russia and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

A UN nuclear watchdog report due later in the day is likely to confirm Iran has escalated rather than halted its nuclear fuel programme, exposing Tehran to wider sanctions over fears it is secretly seeking atom bombs.

Rice said the point of Security Council action had always been to get Iran back on the negotiating track.

''The hope is that sanctions show the Iranians ... that this isolation will increase over time and it's time to take a different course,'' she said.

Rice said she was awaiting the report from IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei.

Once she had received the report, world powers would discuss ''the best path ahead'', she said.

Solana, speaking separately on German N24 television, said the door was still open to Iran on talks.

REUTERS

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