Georgia won't affect Russian stance on Iran: envoy

LONDON (Reuters) - The Georgian crisis will not affect Russian cooperation with the West on tackling Iran's nuclear program, unless Western powers make it an issue, Moscow's ambassador to Britain said on Wednesday.

Russia's war with Georgia last month has soured Moscow's relations with the United States and European Union.

But asked how cooperation on the Iran nuclear question would be affected, envoy Yuri Fedotov said: "It's a different issue which of course has no relation to the crisis in Georgia."

The five permanent United Nations Security Council members, including Russia, and Germany -- a group known as the E3+3 -- have been leading diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to freeze nuclear enrichment.

"I don't expect direct implications of the situation on the E3+3 talks. Everything depends on our partners," Fedotov told a group of reporters.

Major power diplomacy on Iran followed a pattern established for a long time and would continue to do so -- "if of course our partners would not decide otherwise," he said.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says it only wants nuclear power for electricity. World powers have offered Iran a package of trade, nuclear and other incentives to halt its sensitive nuclear work, but Tehran has repeatedly said it will not do so.

The United States and its Western allies are pushing for more U.N. sanctions, after three sets were imposed since 2006.

Fedotov said the lack of progress at talks with Iran in Geneva, and Iran's announcement last week that it had 4,000 working nuclear centrifuges, were "regrettable".

Russia was prepared to go ahead with "some kind of pressure" on Iran, he said.

But it still believed that an offer by the big powers of "suspension for suspension" could bring "more meaningful results", he added -- a reference to their proposal to hold off from imposing more U.N. sanctions in return for Iran freezing expansion of its nuclear work.

Iranian newspapers have said that the conflict between Russia and Georgia may indirectly benefit Iran by making it more difficult for the West to reach agreement with Moscow on new U.N. sanctions.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)