Special report: Iran Nuclear Crisis

    KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said here on Tuesday that the door remained open for Iran to resume negotiations and find a way out of the nuclear standoff.

    Merkel, who arrived in Kuwait on Tuesday on the last leg of her four-day Arab tour, made the remarks at a joint press conference with Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

    Though military option against Iran was out of the question, she said, there was still a chance that Iran would be the target of UN sanctions.

    But Merkel added that even after such sanctions are imposed on Iran, the door of further negotiations would still be open.

    She urged Tehran to "respect international laws, specifically UN Resolution 1737, dealing with the Iranian nuclear arms arsenal and to adopt a transparent attitude in this connection."

    Sheikh Nasser also stressed the importance of getting back to negotiations over Iran's nuclear issue, saying, "it is important now to have unconditional negotiations, we have to sit down at the negotiating table and talk openly and without conditions."

    The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1737 on Dec. 23, 2006,calling on Tehran to suspend its enrichment activities while imposing sanctions on Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

    However, Iran rejected the resolution and vowed to install at least 3,000 centrifuges by the end of March.