2ND EU-Iran meeting postponed, US calls for sanctions

Deutsche Presse Agentur
Published: Wednesday September 13, 2006

Brussels/Vienna- The international community fell short of consensus on its approach to the Iran nuclear dispute Wednesday with the United States calling for the imposition of sanctions and its international partners appearing committed to diplomacy alone. However a meeting between EU foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, announced earlier in the day and expected to have taken place in Paris Thursday, was postponed.

EU diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa late Wednesday that Solana and Larijani had spoken by telephone and decided that given "the complicated issues under discussion" the talks should be conducted instead by their senior officials.

EU foreign ministers on Friday will review the state of discussions and the two men will later fix a new date for their talks, the diplomats said.

Solana and Larijani met twice in Vienna last weekend in a bid to clarify Iran's response to a package of trade and aid investments aimed at coaxing Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

Both sides said later that "misunderstandings" over the incentives package had been cleared up, with Larijani saying he was "optimistic" about clinching the long-elusive deal with Solana.

An official statement released in Vienna - where the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was meeting for a third day - by the "EU Three" of Britain, Germany and France had earlier on Wednesday welcomed the Solana-Larijani meeting.

The statement described the talks as the way forward "for a diplomatic solution and a long-term agreement," to settle the international dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

However addressing the same IAEA meeting on Wednesday, US envoy Gregory Schulte called for sanctions to be imposed on Iran in "support" of the diplomatic process.

"We are convinced that Iran is working aggressively on the technology, the material and the know-how in order to be able to build nuclear weapons," Schulte said.

In light of the "disappointment, lack of transparency, provocation and disregard for its international obligations," displayed by Iran, the international community must take "further steps to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," the US diplomat said.

In its support for immediate consideration of sanctions, the US is alone among the group of six nations - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany - currently also trying to broker a solution to the Iran nuclear issue.

Efforts on Tuesday to agree on a joint statement by the six failed, with envoys from China and Russia rejecting calls for the immediate imposition of sanctions. "Moscow and Beijing are not in agreement with the hardline stance of Washington on this question," said one EU diplomat on the fringes of the meeting.

The US had already on Monday urged sanctions to be imposed on Iran if the country continued to reject a UN resolution which had called for it to suspend uranium enrichment by August 31.

The EU has instead said it wants to give priority to diplomacy on the issue, but officials have also warned that discussions on possible sanctions against Tehran will resume if Iran is not willing to compromise.

© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur