MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Wednesday said unilateral sanctions against Iran would be ""counterproductive"" in efforts to force Tehran to suspend its nuclear fuel work.

Russia is of the view that the ""politics of adopting unilateral and anti-Iranian sanctions espoused by some countries is counterproductive,"" the ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov articulated this view when he met with Howard Berman, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, the statement said.
The United States and its European allies had pushed for new, tougher sanctions against Tehran but ran into resistance from Russia -- among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- and China.
Tehran insists its program is strictly peaceful and solely aimed at generating electricity.
The UN Security Council has slapped three rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
It has a right to enrich uranium to make nuclear fuel as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).