Region | Iran
Iran nuclear talks very difficult, says Solana
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said his talks with Iran on its disputed nuclear programme were difficult because Tehran did not want to suspend uranium enrichment, but it was worth trying.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 May 8, 2007
- Image Credit: AP
- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana expects another meeting with Iran in the near future.
Brussels: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday his talks with Iran on its disputed nuclear programme were difficult because Tehran did not want to suspend uranium enrichment, but it was worth trying.
"The situation as you know is very difficult because what we are demanding from Iran is the suspension of activities as long as the negotiations take place ... For the moment this is very difficult to obtain," he told a European Parliament committee.
Solana said the only agreement he reached with chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in two days of talks in Ankara last month was to report back ideas they had discussed and keep the channel of communication open, adding he expected another meeting in the near future, but probably not this week.
The United Nations has imposed limited sanctions on Iran after the Islamic Republic defied resolutions ordering it to freeze its most sensitive nuclear work, which the West suspects is aimed at developing an atom bomb.
"They do not want to suspend and therefore for the other side it is very difficult to get engaged in actual negotiation," Solana said.
However, he said he was convinced that if Tehran met the conditions for starting formal negotiations, progress was possible towards a more cooperative relationship.
"The new dynamics that we will create once the real process of negotiation starts, tends to give me the impression that we could arrive to some possible agreement. But it's going to be very difficult to enter into the negotiation process without levelling the field."
The United States, Russia and China have joined the European Union in offering economic, technological and security incentives if Iran abandons nuclear work that could give it a military capability.
Solana said he and Larijani had agreed that negotiations would not be open-ended but would last five or six months.
"What we are having now I would not call actual negotiation. It's more a dialogue to pave the way to enter into a real formal negotiation process," he said.
'No freeze on enrichment'
Iran will not freeze uranium enrichment to reach a truce with the United Nations over its nuclear programme, the Islamic republic's foreign minister said yesterday.
Manouchehr Mottaki insisted Iran has a legal right to pursue nuclear technology and would spurn a Swiss initiative that calls for a simultaneous freeze of Iranian atomic activities in exchange for a commitment not to impose new UN sanctions.
While Iran could agree to some parts of the proposal, "the red line is suspension," Mottaki said during a visit to Stockholm.
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