Door of diplomacy still open on Iran's nuclear program: Chinese diplomat

GENEVA, March 17 (Xinhua) -- It's still not the time to talk about sanctions against Iran as the door of diplomacy is still open on finding a compromise over its nuclear program, He Yafei, China's ambassador to the United Nations Office in Geneva, said on Wednesday.

"I think the door of compromise through negotiations, the door of diplomacy, is not closed," He told reporters.

"We need to do our best, to exhaust every avenue before we decide on whether we should have new additional sanction measures, " He said.

The Chinese ambassador said that Iran, as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but the country "should not develop any capability that can produce nuclear weapons."

"We certainly do not want to see an Iran with a nuclear weapon capability...China is very much for safeguarding and strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime," He said.

According to the ambassador, the way out for Iran's nuclear issue is to have a dialogue and to have negotiations with the country.

He added that China had been talking to Iran constantly and urging the country to agree to a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a first step to solve the nuclear issue.

Under the IAEA proposal, most of Iran's existing low-grade enriched uranium should be shipped to Russia and France, where it would be processed into fuel rods with the purity of 20 percent. The higher-grad nuclear fuel would then be transported back to Iran for the use at a research reactor.

The United States and its Western allies have long been accusing Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons under the disguise of a civilian program. Iran has denied the accusation and stressed its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

Nowadays Western powers are talking about adopting new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program through a UN resolution.