Special Report: Iran Nuclear Crisis

    WASHINGTON, July 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Admiral Michael Mullen urged on Sunday the international community to increase economic and political pressure on Iran in the settlement of the crisis over Tehran's nuclear program.

    Speaking to the Fox network, Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, said that he felt encouraged by the talks between European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili Saturday in Geneva, in the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns and senior diplomats from China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.

    "I believe that the international community needs to continue to bring pressure on Iran both economically, financially, diplomatically, politically, to continue to bring them to a point where we can all deal with this issue of nuclear weapons," Mullen said.

    "The pressure has got to continue to be brought specifically on Iran to not proceed in this regard," he said.

    The nuclear talks in Geneva focused on the package of incentives offered by the six world powers, made up of five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, to Tehran to breathe life into the earlier deadlocked nuclear negotiations.

    However, Iran did not give clear answer to a package of incentives for suspending its nuclear program, Solana told reporters after talks with Jalili in the presence of Burns.

    "We have not got a clear answer ... and I hope to have an answer to that and other questions in two weeks' time," he said.