Iran's head of delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Reza Vaidi (centre) answers reporters' questions as he leaves the British Permanent Representation to the European Union office in Brussels yesterday, at the end of a meeting with representatives from the EU, Britain, France and Germany. Iran presented no major new proposals at talks with European Union countries yesterday over its nuclear ambitions, a British official said after the discussions ended. - REUTERS
BRUSSELS, (Reuters):
THE EUROPEAN Union called yesterday for the U.N. Security Council to step into the nuclear dispute with Iran, but stopped short of calling for Tehran's formal referral to the top world body for possible sanctions.
The Islamic Republic is striving to head off any move by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Tehran to the Security Council over its nuclear programme when the IAEA's governing board holds crisis talks in Vienna on Thursday.
"The negotiating process has reached an impasse and the involvement of the Security Council is needed to ensure that the requests - many times repeated - of the agency are respected," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in Brussels.
Iran had put its ideas to EU officials in Brussels just hours before Washington and its European allies were to try to get Russia and China to back tough diplomatic action against it.
In London, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran's previous behaviour and its failure to heed a September warning from the IAEA showed that action was needed now to prevent it from building nuclear weapons.
"They need to suspend the activities that they have reengaged in and get back to negotiations," said Rice at a news conference before a dinner yesterday of foreign ministers from the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany.
"Differences on tactics and timings there may be, but I don't see anyone saying to the Iranians that they are on the right side of the issue. The Iranians need to hear that message," she said.
NOTHING NEW FROM TALKS
Douste-Blazy told a news briefing the talks with Iran in Brussels had yielded nothing new, but added that negotiations could be reopened if Tehran complied with IAEA requests.
Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the meeting had been positive.
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, also said the EU would seek to "involve" the Security Council when the IAEA meets on Thursday.
Russia and China have been reluctant to see Iran referred formally to the council, wary of opening the way for eventual U.N. sanctions that could hurt their commercial interests.
But they also share some of the West's worries about Iran, and Russia has offered to enrich Iranian uranium on its soil as a safeguard against any diversion for military use.
Iran has voiced interest in the Russian proposal, but the United States and Britain dismiss this as posturing to avoid being reported to the Security Council by the IAEA.
"When the Iranians now advance interest in the Russian proposal one has to wonder if that isn't because they now face the prospect of referral to the Security Council," said Rice.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in Brussels that he hoped the dinner in London would produce a consensus.
Russia has suggested the IAEA could ask the Security Council simply to discuss Iran and then send it back to the IAEA, but it has backed Western demands for Tehran to reinstate a moratorium on fuel research and enrichment that it abandoned on January 9.
