IRAN MUST STOP BUYING TIME, FRATTINI SAYS

IRAN MUST STOP BUYING TIME, FRATTINI SAYS

(ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - Iran must end its policy of seeking to buy time with the international community while pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Monday.

According to the foreign minister, the international community must not allow Iran to constantly change its position on enriching uranium at home, as Tehran appears to prefer, or sending it abroad for enrichment, as demanded by the United Nations.

"What are needed are serious negotiations but until now we have not gotten a straight answer (from Iran) and this is cause for concern in the international community," he added.

"We just can't keep chasing after Iran which continues to change its position. Iran needs to be judge on what it does and not what it says," Frattini said.

"We do not want Iran to have the atomic bomb and while they have the right to the peaceful use of nuclear power, we can no longer allow them to buy time," the foreign minister added.