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Titolo: Britain 'will lead' against Iran, Brown says

Britain 'will lead' against Iran, Brown says
By John F. Burns Published: November 13, 2007
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LONDON: Britain will push for a worldwide ban on foreign investment in
Iran's oil and gas industry and other financial sanctions unless two
reports due this month show that it is ready to abandon efforts to acquire
nuclear weapons, according to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
In a speech setting out his government's foreign policy agenda, Brown said
Monday that Iran posed "the greatest immediate challenge" to the effort to
curb the spread of nuclear weapons. He warned Iran that "it has a choice:
confrontation with the international community leading to a tightening of
sanctions, or, if it changes its approach and ends its support for
terrorism, a transformed relationship with the world."
At a meeting in London last week, the six-nation group monitoring Iran's
response to demands for an end to its uranium enrichment program - made up
of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany - agreed
to consider a new round of UN sanctions against Iran if there were no
early breakthrough on the issue. Two new reports on Iran's compliance, one
by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and another
by the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei,
are due before the end of the month.
"Unless positive outcomes" flow from the reports, Brown said, "we will
lead in seeking tougher sanctions both at the UN and in the European
Union, including on oil and gas investment and the financial sector. Iran
should be in no doubt about our seriousness of purpose."
The warning, the bluntest given by Britain, came in Brown's speech at the
Lord Mayor's Banquet, an annual event that British prime ministers
traditionally use for major foreign policy addresses. In office for six
months, Brown appeared eager to depict himself as a match in international
affairs for his predecessor, Tony Blair, and in particular to answer
critics who have predicted that Britain, under the Brown government, would
be a less congenial partner of the United States than it was during
Blair's 10 years in office.
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 President Nicolas Sarkozy of France visited Washington last week, during
which he expressed his admiration for the United States and his intention
to abandon years of estrangement between Paris and Washington. Under
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's relationship with the United States
has also warmed.
Brown seemed eager to regain lost ground. "It is no secret that I have
been a lifelong admirer of the United States," he said.
Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting from Washington.
China takes middle road 
China said Tuesday that sanctions were not the way to resolve the
confrontation over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Reuters reported from
Beijing. At the same time, China also urged Tehran to be more compromising.
The comments came as Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi went to Tehran for talks
on the dispute and a senior U.S. Treasury official was in Beijing to
discuss financial penalties on Iran.
"We urge Iran to respond positively to international calls and adopt a
flexible stance," a ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said at a regular
news conference. "We believe that sanctions, especially unilateral
sanctions, are of no help."
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 Britain 'will lead' against Iran, Brown says
il poodle può anche camminare davanti al padrone, ma i ruoli non
cambiano....ROTFL