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Nicholas Burns to step down

AFP, Washington
The third highest-ranking official at the US State Department and the pointman in talks to step up sanctions on Iran, Nicholas Burns, is quitting his job, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, will be succeeded by the US ambassador to Moscow, William Burns, the department said. The two men are not related.
After 26 years as a top notch, soft-spoken career diplomat, Burns "has decided it was time for him to retire from the Foreign Service," Rice told reporters in a surprise announcement.
"He's decided that it's the right moment to go back to family concerns. And while it is a sad thing for us, it is certainly something that I understand and respect," Rice said, with Bums by her side.
Prior to his latest assignment in March 2005 after President George W Bush's election to a second term in office, Burns was US permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).
He had also served twice as ambassador to Greece, and was spokesman for the State Department.
Burns, who will turn 52 on January 28, was also a staff member of the National Security Council at the White House in the early 1990s. In addition, he had been a special assistant to president Bill Clinton.
Burns and Rice had first served together in the administration of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush at the end of the Cold War. Both speak fluent Russian.
He will however stay in his current post until March, especially to help craft a third UN Security Council sanctions' resolution against Iran.
Bums will accompany Rice for key talks next week with her counterparts from Britain. France, Russia, China and Germany in Berlin next week to discuss the new sanctions.
It would be the first foreign minister level meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, dubbed the P5-plus-l, since September.
"We've got a lot of work to do starting next week when we will go together to Berlin to have a little meeting on the way forward on Iran with the P5 plus-1," Rice said.
I^ast month, Rice admitted that the United States has "tactical differences" with Russia and China about the" timing, about the nature of any further sanctions."
Iran denies Western charges that it is seeking a nuclear weapon, insisting that the program is peaceful and aimed merely at providing energy for its growing population.
Burns has also agreed to. after his retirement, help push the US-India civilian nuclear deal to conclusion and also help in efforts by the Bush administration to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
"I'm going to continue to sup-fiort your efforts to secure an sraeli-Palestinian peace, to finish this very promising strategic opening with India which will do so much good for our country and our global foreign policy," he told Rice.
More than two years after Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached an agreement in which Washington would provide India with nuclear fuel and technology, the deal has not taken off.
Under the agreement nucleararmed India, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation lYcaty (NPT). had to place selected atomic facilities under international safeguards. It also has to get a green light from the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, a global regulator of nuclear commerce.
An operating agreement together with safeguards has to be cleared by the US Congress before the deal could be implemented.