EU to seek more talks before sanctions on Iran

Lappeenranta (Finland), Sep 1: European Union foreign ministers want more dialogue with Iran rather than immediate sanctions after Tehran defied a UN deadline to stop sensitive nuclear work, officials said today.

At a two-day informal meeting near Finland's border with Russia, ministers were expected to seek fresh talks despite US pressure for a rapid move to impose punitive sanctions.

They were also due to discus how to use the aftermath of the Lebanon war to promote a revival of West Asia peace efforts as thousands of European peacekeepers head for a dangerous mission of policing a buffer zone between Israel and Hizbollah fighters.

''Unfortunately Iran has show that ... for the moment at least it doesn't plan to cooperate on the nuclear issue and it's clear that on a matter of such importance the international community cannot stand idly by,'' EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

''But at the same time we also said we want a diplomatic solution, so therefore I hope that the channels of communication can be still kept open,'' she told a news conference.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Reuters he hoped to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, in the coming days to seek a clear answer to major power proposals for broad cooperation if Tehran halts uranium enrichment.

An EU diplomat said they were tentatively due to meet in Berlin next Tuesday, one day before six major powers meet in the German capital to chart next steps in the standoff with Iran.

An EU official said Finland, which holds the 25-nation bloc's rotating presidency, did not want any substantial discussion of sanctions at the Lappeenranta meeting.

NO SIGN Iran sent a confidential 21-page reply last week but Western officials said it evaded the international community's key demand to halt making nuclear fuel, which the West suspects is aimed at developing a bomb.

''We have to see if we can get some understanding of the elements of the document which are not clear enough for us and I think a meeting face to face could clarify that,'' Solana said.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, who will chair the meeting, said the EU should try to convince the Islamic Republic to give a straightforward answer and suspend enrichment.

But there was no sign of any such move by Tehran. On the contrary, the country's leadership insisted it would not give up what it calls the inalienable right to nuclear technology.

Diplomats said Iran's tactic was to fudge the deadline, and try to divide Russia and China from the West and the Europeans from the United States by dangling the possibility of a negotiated freeze on enrichment at a later date.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy deplored Iran's ''unsatisfactory'' reply but said the path of dialogue should always be privileged. Britain, closest to Washington on the Iran issue, made clear it too would prefer another attempt at talks.

On the Arab-Israeli conflict, the EU ministers will discuss how to leverage their growing military presence as peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to bring about new regional talks.

European officials argue that the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas and continuing Israeli-Palestinian violence can only be resolved by a political process leading to a negotiated settlement.

Tuomioja broke ranks with the EU's common position by suggesting in an interview with the Financial Times that the time had come to have contacts with the Palestinian militant movement Hamas, boycotted by the West because it refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist and renounce violence.

Reuters