Prior to the planned October talks with Tehran, China expresses opposition with imposing new sanctions on Iran in order to force it to abandon its nuclear program.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news briefing in Beijing on Thursday that piling up pressure on Iran could not be an effective measure in resolving the much disputed issue.

"We believe that sanctions and exerting pressure are not the way to solve problems and are not conducive for the current diplomatic efforts on the Iran nuclear issue," she said.

Jiang called on parties involved in the issue to 'redouble diplomatic efforts' to reach a lasting solution, instead of exerting pressure on the country.

Iran is expected to sit at the negotiating table with the six powers in Geneva on October 1 to discuss a wide range of global issues.

Ahead of the next week's meeting, top diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China -- plus Germany (P5+1) met at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday to discuss Iran's nuclear issue.

At the end of the talks, a joint statement from the six world powers was read by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, urging Iran to provide a 'serious response' over its nuclear work on October 1st.

The statement recognized Iran's right to develop a civilian nuclear technology but claimed that the issue still remained 'a matter of serious concern to the international community'.

Iran is already under three rounds of UN Security Council resolutions for its uranium enrichment activities. Iran insists on the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and refuses to freeze the program as demanded by the major nuclear powers.

Iran argues that its nuclear program has been closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and that the western and Israeli propaganda raising fears about the weoponization of the program is baseless and uncalled for. Iran further deplores the inaction of P5+1 and the IAEA concerning Israeli possession of atomic bombs and its refusal to cooperate with any international regulatory agency, calling it an utter double standard.

Source- presstv