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Iran says EU nuclear talks postponed
By Stuart Williams
AFP
TEHRAN
Petroleumworld.com 05 28 07Iran and the European Union have agreed to postpone crunch talks seeking to break the deadlock in the standoff over the Iranian nuclear programme, the foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were due to meet on Thursday, possibly in Spain, for their second encounter in just over a month.
"For the Larijani-Solana meeting, no date or venue has been set," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters. "With the agreement of both sides it has been postponed."
He said that the delay had been agreed in a telephone conversation between the two men and was required as both sides needed more time to study their options for the talks.
"There was a meeting at the level of experts. There was an exchange of views and plans. But some of these plans need greater evaluation and study."
Hosseini did not give further details on the reasons for the delay or say where and when the "experts" meeting took place.
The meetings between Larijani and Solana are central to diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff, which has already seen Iran slapped with two sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
After missing its latest Security Council deadline to suspend the process, Western powers are now pressing for Iran to face further penalties for its defiance.
Even when the pair do meet, it remains unclear whether the two sides will be able to achieve any breakthrough, with the European Union wanting Iran to freeze uranium enrichment and Tehran refusing to even consider such a move.
Iran's right to enrichment is the main obstacle towards resolving the standoff as the sensitive process can be used both to make nuclear fuel and highly enriched uranium for the explosive core of an atomic bomb.
The announcement of the postponment also comes amid protests from Western powers over comments by UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei that they should change their stance towards Iran's nuclear drive.
ElBaradei has said in a series of recent interviews that the international community should deal realistically with the fact that Iran has attained the know-how to enrich uranium and should allow it to conduct some enrichment.
His comments prompted the United States to lead its allies Britain, France and Japan in lodging a protest with him at his headquarters in Vienna on Friday.
The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran which says it just wants to produce energy for a growing population whose fossil fuels will eventually run out.
AFP 27 0732 GMT 05 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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