U.S. President Obama speaks as Britain's Prime Minister Cameron, Russia's Prime Minister Medvedev and Germany's Chancellor Merkel listen at the start of the first working session of the G8 Summit at Camp David, Maryland, May 19, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)
President Barack Obama hosting G8 leaders on Saturday said the group was unified on how to approach upcoming nuclear negotiations with Iran.
"We're unified when it comes to our approach with Iran," Obama said as he hosted G8 leaders at Camp David, adding that weaponization of the program was "something of grave concern to all of us."
Iran has said sanctions over its disputed nuclear program should be lifted in talks with world powers next week in Baghdad, but on Saturday maintained that the punitive measures would not compel it to abandon its atomic "rights."
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told state media that the lifting of sanctions would display "the first signs" that the West is changing its "wrong" approach towards Iran and its nuclear work.
Mehmanparast reiterated Tehran's assertion that the sanctions have no legal basis, but admitted "no one in Iran is happy about the sanctions" and that they "may cause problems."
But he insisted that "sanctions do not really have a significant effect."
Iran on May 23 is to meet representatives of the so-called P5+1 group, comprising the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, in Iraq's capital for the second round of talks which were revived in April in Istanbul after a 15-month impasse.
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