Obama: new talks on Iran will quiet "drums of war"

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. President Barack Obama said an announcement of six-power talks with Iran offered a diplomatic chance to defuse a crisis over its nuclear program and quiet the "drums of war," Reuters reports.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany in dealings with Iran, announced Tuesday, March 6, a fresh bid to allay suspicions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons after weeks of consultations with the other powers.

A date and venue have yet to be agreed for the talks, proposed by Iran after a year's diplomatic standstill that has increased fears of a slide into a new Middle East war.

Amid mounting speculation that Iran's nuclear sites could be attacked in coming months, Obama said that American politicians "beating the drums of war" had a responsibility to explain the costs and benefits of military action.

He said the notion that the United States needed to make a choice in coming weeks or months was "not borne out by facts."

But he said Washington would "not countenance" Iran getting a nuclear weapon, shortly after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the United States would take military action to prevent this happening if diplomacy failed.

"Military action is the last alternative when all else fails," Panetta told the annual policy conference of the biggest U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. "But make no mistake, when all else fails, we will act."