US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 28 January in London, who said afterwards that Tehran cannot keep the world waiting forever in the standoff over its nuclear program. “The Iranian nuclear program is certainly an important theme of our dialogue. We are disappointed that Iran has not responded constructively to the proposals offered by the ‘three plus three’ group. We agreed to continue to seek a positive response to these proposals. But clearly, we can't wait indefinitely, and our partners are talking about the need to discuss additional steps in the UN Security Council so we can move forward towards the goals set by the international community,” Lavrov said.
Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US have been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program amid concerns that the Islamic republic is secretly developing fissile material for nuclear weapons. “On the Iran issue, what has happened is that the United States and others believe we have sort of come to the point where it seems that Iran is not going to respond to the initiative of the six in an acceptable way and so clearly the next step is look at - Now What?” James Collins, a former US ambassador to Moscow who's now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told New Europe on 28 January.
Collins noted that “the issue of sanctions - or ‘What we do if Iran will not meet its international obligations?’ - is now actively on the table again and is under discussion ... People have found the Russians to be constructive about the question: ‘What we do?’ and not ruling some kind of sanctions beyond where we are now by any means but also not specifying how far they are prepared to go at least at any public forum.”