U.S. Under Secretary of State for political affairs Nicholas Burns urged Iran on Friday to resume nuclear talks with the international community.

"We want the Iranians to negotiate, whether it's with the EU-3 or Russia or any other country, on a serious basis," Burns said at a news briefing.

"All of us believe that Iran should resume negotiations with either the European Union or with Russia. All of us felt that Iran should meet its commitments to the IAEA," Burns said.

"Our objective is to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability. And all of our diplomatic efforts have been designed to do that."

Referring to Russia's proposal to have Iran's uranium enriched in Russia, which was said to be winning support of the EU and the United States, Burns denied that Washington has accepted the proposal.

"The United States has said that we find the Russian proposal to be interesting. And it might be a good way to proceed for negotiation. We've never said that we accept, you know, every detail on that proposal," Burns said.

Iran is currently under mounting pressure of the European Union (EU) to halt its nuclear fuel research work which it resumed on Jan. 10 after a two-and-half-year suspension.

Iran suspended activities at its Isfahan facility under a 2004 November deal with France, Germany and Britain, the so-called EU-3, but resumed work at the plant in August, resulting in suspension of nuclear talks between the EU-3 and Iran.

Washington has been strongly criticizing for Iran's resumption of nuclear activities.

Based upon what Iran did, "we can only interpret that Iran is no longer interested in negotiation, Stephen Geoffrrey Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Friday.

Rademaker insisted that the efforts to refer Iran's nuclear to the UN Security Council is a right choice due to Iran's violation of its pledges to the European Union.

"The IAEA is left with no alternative but to report Iran to the Security Council. We hope the authority of the UN security Council to increase pressure on Iran to reconsider the very dangerous cause."

The IAEA stands for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"Leaving the matter where it is today will invite Iranians to conclude that international community is weak and divided."

"We need international community in an agreement that Iran has to change course," he said, noting that Iran will unavoidably be facing sanctions if it continues defying international community.

The EU and the United States suspect Tehran is trying to develop weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program, a charge Iran vehemently denies.

Iran insists its program is purely peaceful and has threatened to cut off cooperation with international inspectors if the matter is taken up by the UN Security Council.

Source: Xinhua