Region | Iran
Iran and EU fail to resolve crisis
Iran and top EU powers failed yesterday to resolve a stand-off over its nuclear work before a UN atomic watchdog meeting next week that may lead to Security Council action.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 March 4, 2006
Vienna: Iran and top EU powers failed yesterday to resolve a stand-off over its nuclear work before a UN atomic watchdog meeting next week that may lead to Security Council action.
There were, however, reports of Iran and Russia having reached a total agreement on Tehran's suspect nuclear programme.
After two-hour talks in Vienna at Iran's request, ministers and top diplomats from Germany, France and Britain, as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, said Tehran had no new ideas on how to allay concerns about its intentions.
They repeated to Iran that it must shelve enrichment-related work to regain trust and spawn fresh negotiations on trade incentives, which could include Russia's offer to purify uranium for Iran to prevent possible siphoning into bomb production.
The EU leaders said Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani gave no sign it would back off from its quest for sensitive nuclear technology that it says is meant only to generate electricity.
Iran had no immediate comment. No more talks were scheduled.
A senior Iranian official in Vienna said yesterday Iran and Russia have reached total agreement on the question of Tehran's suspect nuclear programme. But this was not immediately confirmed in Moscow.
Waiting confirmation
"Iran and Russia have reached complete agreement on a package which meets all the demands of the international community, Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," the official said.
In Moscow, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Iran must agree to suspend all uranium enrichment activities, something Tehran refuses to do.
The IAEA's 35-country board of governors convenes on Monday to weigh a report by the IAEA chief saying essentially Iran has ignored a February 4 board resolution urging it to shelve uranium-enrichment work to ease the crisis.
Instead, Iran is vacuum-testing a cascade of 20 centrifuges, which convert uranium into fuel for power plants or, if highly purified, bombs. It also plans to install 3,000 centrifuges later this year in a push towards "industrial scale" enrichment.
"We wanted to see if Iran was in a position to give a positive answer to the coming IAEA board. Our terms are simple and legitimate and would not jeopardise Iran's development. Unfortunately we were not able to reach agreement," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said after the talks.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the EU3, which froze talks with Iran in January after it broke a two-and-a-half-year moratorium on nuclear work, granted its request for a short-notice meeting hoping to hear a new proposal but in vain.
"Time is running short. If we want success (by negotiations), we have to get it now," Steinmeier said in a statement.
"The IAEA board deliberations on Iran's nuclear programme will happen next week and they will be of great significance, either we'll achieve a deal enabling renewed negotiations or the matter will be referred to the Security Council."
John Sawers, the British Foreign Office's political director, said the EU3 were willing to meet Iranian officials again at short notice if they had something new to say. "We heard a new tone. It was more constructive. But there wasn't the essential move of substance we were looking for," he told reporters.
"What we heard was a request we accept they should go ahead with nuclear R&D (research and development). We are opposed to that because so-called R&D is the essential precursor to full-scale enrichment ... needed to build nuclear bombs."
Clerics hold people hostage, says Bush in Delhi
The Iranian people are held hostage by clerics who foster terrorism, US President George Bush charged yesterday in an address about freedom and democracy.
"In Iran, a proud people are held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism and pursues nuclear weapons," he said in a keynote speech in New Delhi.
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