MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) - Further sanctions against Tehran cannot be ruled out if no progress is made on Iran's nuclear issue, the Russian president said on Saturday.
"I would not like everything to end with the use of international sanctions, because sanctions, as a general rule, are a step in a very tricky and dangerous direction," Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. "However, if there is no movement forward, such a scenario cannot be excluded."
He said that if agreement was reached on programs related to the enrichment of Iranian uranium, Russia "would gladly participate in such programs."
A senior Iranian MP said on Saturday Iran would not ship out its low-enriched uranium for further processing abroad, but would prefer a direct deal with fuel supplying countries.
Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of the parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission, also shrugged off Western demands that Iran respond to the UN-sponsored deal as soon as possible, saying "the West cannot set any deadlines."
October talks in Vienna between Iran, the UN, the U.S., Russia and France on its nuclear program ended with a deal involving Iran shipping out its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France. Under the deal, the uranium would be enriched in Russia and then sent to France to prepare it for use in an Iranian reactor.
Iran subsequently said it wanted more talks on the deal, including fuel delivery guarantees, and also stated it would like to buy directly enriched material.
Tehran has rejected Western suspicions that it secretly plans to build nuclear weapons and insists on its right to nuclear technology for electricity generation.
Russia has consistently supported Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and has almost completed the country's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
