As the US and its European allies are trying to increase unilateral sanctions against Iran, other major states show bold resistance to the punitive measures. Read the full story

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang told the visiting Iranian oil minister on Friday that Beijing would maintain cooperation with Tehran on existing projects, after the United States called on Beijing to observe sanctions.

“Iran is an important trade partner of China’s in western Asia and North Africa and one of the country’s main oil suppliers. Bilateral economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results,” state television paraphrased Li as telling minister Massoud Mirkazemi.

“China is willing to work hard with Iran, continue to push mutual political trust, and maintain communication, dialogue and coordination on important international issues, to maintain regional and global peace, stability and prosperity,” Li added.

“The key point is to solidly push forward existing cooperative projects, to ensure they are put into effect smoothly, to deepen bilateral pragmatic cooperation and promote the continued development of bilateral ties,” he added.

State television showed pictures of the meeting, in the Communist Party’s headquarters in central Beijing, on its main evening news.

Mirkazemi said he hoped that “both sides would create conditions to push forward existing projects,” the brief report added, without elaborating.

The minister is in Beijing for talks with Chinese energy executives. He has not made any public comments.

China has already pushed back at U.S. pressure on its business and oil trade with Iran in comments published earlier this week, saying Chinese trade dealings with Iran should not be criticized.

The government was responding to comments by Robert Einhorn, special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control at the U.S. State Department, who said on Monday that China should observe sanctions against Iran aimed at forcing it to curtail its nuclear ambitions.

Western governments have pressed China to loosen its energy and economic ties with Iran, which they see as shielding Iran from international pressure.

Iran is a major supplier of crude oil to China, the world’s second-biggest consumer of oil after the United States.

The United States has urged China to tap other suppliers, but China has condemned unilateral U.S. and E.U. sanctions aimed at Iran’s energy sector.

China has backed U.N. Security Council resolutions pressing Iran to abandon disputed nuclear activities, which Western governments say are aimed at giving Iran the means to make nuclear weapons. Iran disputes that.

In the first half of 2010, Iran held its place as China’s third biggest supplier of crude with shipments of 9 million tonnes of oil, putting it behind Saudi Arabia and Angola, according to Chinese customs data.

The European Union formally adopted new energy sanctions against Iran Monday which target the country’s energy, banking, and foreign trade sectors. Read the full story

China denounced the United States on Tuesday for imposing its own sanctions on Iran, saying Washington should not unilaterally take such steps outside of U.N. resolutions. Read the full story

US President Barack Obama has signed into law new sanctions against Iran intended to impede the development of its nuclear programme. The measures, which penalise foreign companies that trade with Iran, were overwhelmingly approved by US Congress last week. Read the full story

Major US firms are warning Congress against passing legislation to impose new sanctions against Iran, saying such sanctions will further damage the US economy. Read the full story

Brazil has highlighted Iran’s role in the region, reiterating that Tehran must be part of a solution to any conflict in the Middle East. Read the full story

Defense Minister Ehud Barak stressed the need for tough sanctions against Iran as he wrapped up meetings with senior American officials, even as the two allies have disagreed on the severity of punitive measures in recent days. Read the full story

President Obama accused Iran yesterday of trying to build a bomb after Tehran’s nuclear scientists began enriching uranium closer to weapons grade in defiance of the United Nations. Read the full story

Barak calls for talks with Damascus as soon as possible, says new Iran sanctions won’t work. In the absence of a peace deal with Syria, Israel could find itself at war with its neighbor to the north, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Monday. Read the full story

The Obama administration is preparing to circulate proposed tough new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program as early as this week at the United Nations, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Read the full story

While Western powers have looked to further sanctions against Iran over its rejection of a U.N. plan to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia and now especially China have resisted such steps and called for more negotiations. Read the full story

The failure of the six key powers at the UN to levy new sanctions on Iran was hailed on Monday by Iran as a sign of increased rationality in the discussion over its disputed nuclear program. Read the full story

“It is inconclusive in the sense that we didn’t make any decisions right away,” Russian delegate Sergei Ryabkov told reporters after the three-hour meeting of diplomats from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.

The meeting came after Iran ignored President Barack Obama’s Dec 31, 2009, deadline to respond to an offer from the six powers of economic and political incentives in exchange for halting its nuclear enrichment program.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian atomic program. Iran says its program is designed to generate electricity so it can export more of its valuable oil and gas.

The European Union, which hosted the meeting at its New York office, said that despite the lack of a concrete outcome, further sanctions were now on the big-power agenda and the six would be in contact again soon to continue the discussions.

All the powers except China sent top level Foreign Ministry officials known as “political directors” to Saturday’s meeting. But Beijing, which said earlier this month that it was not the right time for new sanctions, sent only a mid-ranking diplomat from its U.N. mission, who left without speaking to reporters.

China’s virtual snub of the meeting — one Western diplomat said its level of representation “couldn’t have been lower” — dismayed the four Western powers in the group.

They had hoped to reach an agreement on whether to begin drafting a new Security Council resolution on a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran.

Several diplomats who attended the meeting said the Chinese delegate reiterated Beijing’s position that it does not support further sanctions against Iran at the moment but was careful not to rule out the possibility of backing them later.

CHINESE MOTIVES, IRAN POLICY UNCLEAR

Western diplomats said China’s motive for sending a low-level official was unclear. Senior EU official Robert Cooper told reporters that all six — including China — remained “committed to the two track approach” of engagement and possible further sanctions.

Several diplomats, however, raised doubts about China’s commitment to the sanctions track and hoped that Beijing remains fully on board with the other five powers.

But they said that China’s decision to stick with the group while it discusses sanctions sent a strong signal to Tehran. “The credible threat of further pressure does create some leverage over the Iranian system,” one said.

Senior EU official Robert Cooper told reporters it was not a meeting for decision-making but for a “stock taking and to see the way ahead.” He added, “We will continue to seek a negotiated solution, but consideration of appropriate further measures has also begun.”

The U.S. representative, William Burns, said, “It was a very useful session.”

Three previous rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions have targeted Iran’s nuclear and missile industries, but Iran has shrugged them off and said it plans to pursue its right to enrich uranium. Both Russia and China lobbied hard to dilute the measures in all three sanctions resolutions.

The U.S. and European delegations believe Iran has had enough time to respond to what they describe as a generous offer. But China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Yesui, said on January 5 it was not “the right time or right moment for sanctions because the diplomatic efforts are still going on.”

Negotiating a new sanctions resolution will most likely take months, Western diplomats predict.

But several Western diplomats said they hoped the process of negotiating a new resolution would be over by May, when signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gather to discuss ways of upgrading the treaty to deal with threats like Iran and North Korea.

Western officials have said privately that Russia was “on board” for more sanctions, provided they are not too tough.

The Western powers had originally hoped to sanction Iran’s energy sector but dropped the idea months ago when it became clear Russia and China would never accept it.