EU calls for delay on Iran sanctions
The United Nations has agreed to wait until a meeting between the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran’s chief negotiator before deciding on their next step.
No date has been set for this meeting yet, but it is expected to take place before the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, France, the US, Russia and China, together with Germany, meet in Berlin next Thursday, September 7 to discuss the situation.
Mr Solana spoke by telephone on Thursday to Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and they agreed to meet. This may happen on Monday but it is unlikely to take place in Berlin, as was expected.
He said he hoped to clarify Iran’s response to the EU’s proposals for broad cooperation with Tehran if they halt uranium enrichment, as demanded by the UN Security Council.
Several ministers attending the two day meeting in Finland said they believed diplomacy was the best way forward and that the time had not arrived for sanctions.
But when they discuss the issue today, they are expected to also debate what kind of sanctions could be imposed and how they could be ratcheted up over time.
A diplomat said the first package of sanctions would have to be targeted and restricted to win approval from Russia and China.
Meanwhile, Iran underlined its disregard yesterday for the now-expired UN deadline when its president vowed never to give up its nuclear programme President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a rally: “Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious right. We will never give up our legal right.
“The West’s claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons is a sheer lie,” state TV quoted him as telling the gathering in Maku, northwestern Iran. “The West basically opposes progress by Iran.”
Elsewhere in Iran, a passenger plane skidded off the runway, sparking a fire as it landed in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, killing 29 people.
His comments corrected an earlier report of 80 dead, which had come from state-run television.
The plane, carrying 148 people, slid off the runway.
The craft was a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154, the same make as a passenger jet that crashed in Ukraine on August 22 killing all 170 people on board.
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