Iran: EU Nuke Talks "Step in the Right Direction"
September 14, 2006
A senior Iranian envoy on Thursday called contacts between Tehran and the European Union a "step in the right direction" in resolving the standoff over his country's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment, but he accused the US of trying to sabotage the talks.
Ali Ashgar Soltanieh spoke as senior EU and Iranian representatives met in a new round of negotiations on nuclear differences between Tehran and the international community.
That meeting, originally scheduled for Paris, was moved in the last minute to Geneva for "logistical reasons," EU spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said, without elaboration.
Only "the continuation of dialogue and negotiations free from any kind of threat, pressure or any preconditions can pave the way" to a negotiated solution of the impasse, Soltanieh told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board shortly before the end of the four-day conference.
US push for sanctions
The meeting planned for Thursday in Paris between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was postponed on short notice with no reason given.
Solana is negotiating with the Iranians in the name of six major powers -- the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany -- to encourage Tehran to accept political and economic incentives to suspend uranium enrichment.
The six powers, notably the US, fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge which Tehran rejects saying it has only a civil nuclear power program.
The US is pushing for UN sanctions against Iran for failing to honor an Aug. 31 UN deadline for it to halt the strategic nuclear fuel work, but Russia and China want to give more time for talks to get Iran to comply.
Negotiation vs. confrontation
US Ambassador Gregory Schulte had Wednesday told the IAEA that "Iran's refusal to suspend and its refusal to cooperate is a choice of confrontation over one of negotiation."
Finland, speaking for the 25 EU states at the IAEA, said Iran had to suspend enrichment, not as "a voluntary confidence-building measure, but as an international obligation."
On Tuesday, the six nations failed to agree on a joint statement on Iran at the IAEA meeting due to the US call for sanctions and hesitance by Russia and China to use that word, a western diplomat told news agencies.
'Poisoned' negotiations?
On Thursday, an Iranian official accused the US of "poisoning" the course of nuclear negotiations, the news agency ISNA reported.
"The US intends to poison the course of the negotiations through constant antagonism, although Iran has constantly stressed negotiations for realizing its nuclear rights," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told dpa news service.
Comments in Dakar
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday during a visit to Dakar that Iran would support unconditional talks on the nuclear dispute and that the issue could be settled as long as internationally-acknowledged laws were taken into consideration -- a reference to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed.
Ahmadinejad will later this month travel to New York for the 61st session of the UN General Assembly, where he will once again challenge his American counterpart George W. Bush to a television debate on both the nuclear dispute and the Middle East conflict.