Ministers of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia, meeting in Paris preparing the Group’s Summit scheduled for first of June in the French city of Evian, on the shores of Lake Leman bordering Switzerland, expressed concern about Iranian atomic projects.

While the United States and Israel accuses that Iran is trying hard to become a nuclear power and is also developing ballistic missiles to transport atomic warheads, Tehran insists its nuclear programs are purely for civilian projects, including cheap electricity.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on May 8 that the United States has "serious concerns" about Iran's active pursuit of nuclear weapons, and it supports a "rigorous examination" of Iran's nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Boucher was speaking to the press at the State Department briefing in Washington.

"Iran now openly admits that it is pursuing a complete nuclear fuel cycle. We completely reject Iran's claim that it's doing this for peaceful purposes", Boucher said. "Our concern is about the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons by a state that's a known supporter of terrorism".

The uranium enrichment plant could be used to produce highly enriched uranium for weapons and heavy water plant could support a reactor for producing weapons grade plutonium.

As the ministers were discussing in the French Capital, the United States announced that it has imposed sanctions against a Chinese firm for allegedly transferring missile technology to Iran.

Peking said Friday it had no immediate comment on the trade ban and in Tehran, a telephone operator at the Foreign Affairs Ministry told Iran Press Service that the ministry was closed because of Friday, the country’s official day off, equivalent of the Sunday in Western nations.

The timing of the sanctions, which were imposed May 9 but weren't announced until Thursday in the U.S., is awkward. China's President Hu Jintao is to begin a trip to Europe Monday, and he is to meet with the heads of the Group of Eight, including U.S. President George Bush, in early June.

The sanctions expire May 2005, and include a ban on all imports into the U.S. of goods or services from Norinco, formally known as China North Industries Corp., as well as from an Iranian company, Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group.

According to the communiqué issued in Paris, the ministers were told that in the last international meeting on security problems held in Munich, Germany, Collin Powell had briefed the participants on Iranian atomic programs.

The ministers also called on North Korea to respect its commitments, to refrain from any action that would aggravate the situation and to embark on the full, prompt, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program.

With Washington increasing its accusations that the Islamic Republic is sheltering high-ranking members of al-Qa’eda terrorist network, which is blamed for the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington D. C., the G8 countries also pledged new joint action to fight terrorism.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday his government had also warned Iran that harbouring al-Qa’eda operatives would be "entirely unacceptable" and discussed with the United States reports that a small cell of Osama Ben Laden's militant group in Iran may have directed last week's suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in which 34 people died, including eight Americans.

Britain had normal diplomatic relations with Iran and serves as a channel of communications between Tehran and Washington that cut all relations after Iranian revolutionary students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took 55 American diplomats as hostages for 444 days.

Iran rejects the accusations, observing that it had arrested some 500 people suspected to belong to the organisation.

"The Islamic Republic's borders are fully under control. But it is possible that terrorists or smugglers infiltrate them, and we arrest them as soon as we observe them", said Iran’s Intelligence Minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Yoonesi.

"I can counter by saying that many al-Qa’eda members are in America right now", he countered, adding that America should not blame others because it suffers from "weak intelligence".

Talking to journalists, Powell said Israel’s concerns would be met, but assured that there would be no changes in the Road Map.

France’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Dominique de Villepin, -- with whom Powell apparently, but reluctantly, buried the hatchet of diplomatic, press and psychological war that had erupted over the Iraqi conflict, is to go to the region in a near future to discuss the plan with officials of both sides.

Tehran's nuclear energy plans were discussed between Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharrazi and his French counterpart on Thursday on the sidelines of a conference on drugs.

Outlining objectives behind the malevolent propaganda against Iran's nuclear energy programs, Kharrazi said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran so far has taken no step which contradicted international regulations", according to the Iranian official news agency IRNA.

Kharrazi renewed the Islamic Republic's criticism that the IAEA had failed to fulfil its commitments to the country according to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty agreement, by denying Iran to have access to nuclear technology.

"Those countries which own the nuclear technology must recognise our rights and respect it" he said, adding, as quoted by IRNA, that the world public opinion does not accept the classification of terrorism to good and bad. Terrorists must be firmly confronted irrespective of their nationality or thoughts".

The G 8 ministers said in their final communiqué that the time was "ripe" to also address the Syrian and Lebanese issue. "We are looking at ways and means to draw a general plan for the whole of the region that would also include Syria and Lebanon", Powell said.