Ministers hold six-nation talks on nuclear programme

Foreign ministers from the six powers pushing Iran to accept a package of incentives to suspend its nuclear programme met behind closed doors in Paris on Wednesday – the latest deadline in the stand-off, and one that Tehran looked set to ignore.

The United States and the European Union expressed concern about the outcome of a crucial round of talks yesterday with an Iranian negotiator who ruled out an immediate reply to the offer of incentives, saying it contains too many “ambiguities”.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that Iran has given a “disappointing and incomplete” response to an international deal to end uranium enrichment activities and said world powers may have no choice but to haul Iran before the UN Security Council.

“We’ve always said we were either on the path to negotiations or we’re on the path to the Security Council,” Rice said.

“Apparently … they have decided that they want to move ahead with a programme that is unacceptable to the international community. That then means we would be on the path of the Security Council,” she added.

Iran has repeatedly asserted that under the provisions of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, it has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as power generation. But enrichment also can be used to create fissile core of nuclear warheads, and the United States, Israel and EU all fear Iran’s research programme is a cover for developing weapons.

The European Union’s presidency also warned that the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme would be taken back to the Security Council if there is no agreement.

“If Iran is not ready for cooperation, then the process will have to continue at the UN Security Council,” said Erkki Tuomioja, foreign minister of Finland, which took over the EU presidency on July 1.

The five permanent Security Council members plus Germany have urged Iran to respond to the incentives package, which was presented last month, by Wednesday. If it doesn’t, Western officials have threatened to restart efforts to punish Iran through possible UN sanctions – though veto-wielding countries such as Russia and China may block such a move.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in Rome today that Iran should signal whether the incentives package could be a basis for negotiations.

Last month, Annan urged Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to speed up his country’s response.

But yesterday, Ali Larijani, Tehran’s top nuclear negotiator, said after a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana that the “ambiguities must be removed first in order to have serious talks”.

The package presented to Tehran by Solana reportedly contains economic and trade rewards as well as nuclear expertise and reactors in exchange for a pledge by Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities during nuclear talks.

Solana was briefing Rice and the foreign ministers of France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany in Paris about Tuesday’s talks. The six are pushing for an agreement before this weekend’s Group of Eight summit in Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said before departing for Paris that he hopes Iran will agree soon to the incentives package.

“Our goal remains the same: All the countries that made the proposal to Iran are proceeding from the assumption that the talks on the basis of this proposal should start as quickly as possible,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

Iran, however, repeatedly has said it will not respond to the offer before August. Larijani warned that talks on his country’s nuclear programme will be a “long process”.

Solana was disappointed with the outcome of Tuesday’s talks, spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said.

“We continue to be committed to a negotiated solution,” Gallach said, adding that the EU and others “wanted a reply, the sooner the better.”

Larijani refused to elaborate on the nature of the perceived ambiguities in the offer. He warned Washington and others against sending the matter to the Security Council for possible sanctions, calling it “the wrong way” to solve the impasse.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev weighed in too, writing in the French daily Le Monde that Iran should turn its back on the atom as his nation did when it gave up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union.