March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said new sanctions on Iran to persuade it to stop enriching uranium won’t work because the Islamic republic is “determined to have a nuclear program.”

“I don’t see a set of sanctions coming along that would be so detrimental to the Iranians that they are going to stop that program,” Powell said in an interview with Bloomberg special contributor Judy Woodruff. “So ultimately, the solution has to be a negotiated one.”

The U.S. is working with Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany to persuade Iran to give up enriching uranium, a process that can lead to an atomic bomb. While Iran says it is pursuing enrichment for non-military uses such as energy and medical research, its government hasn’t taken up offers aimed at meeting that goal in other ways.

“The Iranians are determined to have a nuclear program,” Powell said in the interview, which will be broadcast on Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” this weekend. “Notice I did not say a nuclear weapon. But they are determined to have a nuclear program, notwithstanding the last six or seven years of efforts on our part to keep them from having a nuclear program.”

The U.S. and its European allies are pushing for a fourth round of United Nations sanctions against Iran to force it to return to negotiations over its uranium-enrichment work.

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