After a meeting in Washington, US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy have said they wanted tough new sanctions against Iran adopted at the United Nations within weeks. The leaders expressed optimism that China – a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council –  will agree on possible next steps.

Obama and Sarkozy presented a united front on Iran at a joint press conference at the White House, saying it was time to move ahead with sanctions. "My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring," Obama said. He added: "A conflict in the Middle East, as a consequence of Iran's actions, could have a huge destabilizing effect in terms of the world economy at a time when it is just coming out of a very deep recession."

Sarkozy also said the time had come to make to adopt "stronger, tougher sanctions at the Security Council".

Obama acknowledged that new sanctions were difficult to be agreed because Iran was “an oil producer, and there are a lot of countries around the world that, regardless of Iran's offences, are thinking that their commercial interests are more important to them than these long-term geopolitical interests. We have to make sure that we are communicating very clearly that this is very important to the US."

In Gatineau, Canada, the foreign ministers of the Group of Eight urged the international community to take "appropriate and strong steps" to show its resolve over the nuclear program. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran had repeatedly shown an unwillingness to fulfill its international obligations over the last 15 months. "That's the basis on which I express my optimism that we are going to have a consensus reached in the Security Council," she told reporters in Gatineau.

According to Western diplomats, China has agreed to begin discussing sanctions, offering the first sign that Beijing could back a new round of UN measures against Tehran. In Beijing, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said his government was opposed to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. "At present, we hope that all sides will make substantive efforts and demonstrate flexibility over the Iran nuclear issue," he said.