France says more Iran talks needed, sanctions flawed

VIENNA, Sep 18 (Reuters) French President Jacques Chirac today said talks with Iran on its nuclear aspirations should be pursued since UN sanctions had never worked well, a fresh hint of EU misgivings over US calls for punishing Tehran.

At a UN nuclear watchdog meeting in Vienna, Iran's atomic energy chief repeated Iran's denial of anything but peaceful nuclear goals, its wish for talks without preconditions and a veiled threat to bar UN inspections if met by sanctions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's chief summoned world powers to enter ''long-overdue'' negotiations on Iran's nuclear fuel programme as he launched the IAEA meeting that focused on troubled efforts to stem the global spread of volatile nuclear know-how.

Tehran ignored an August 31 UN Security Council deadline to freeze sensitive uranium enrichment activity. The United States is prodding five other world powers to begin weighing sanctions soon, barring a breakthrough in last-ditch EU-Iranian dialogue.

Russia, China and some European Union allies of Washington are loath to isolate Iran, the world's No 4 oil supplier and strategic linchpin in the Middle East, and prefer to pursue dialogue with Tehran despite the flouted deadline.

Chirac echoed that stance, telling Europe 1 radio: ''I do not believe in solutions that do not involve dialogue, in any case a dialogue taken to its limits. I am never in favour of sanctions.

I have never observed that sanctions were very effective.'' He added: ''I do not mean that we will not have to come to sanctions, which will have to, in that case, be moderate and adapted, but nothing is as good as dialogue.'' The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China formally demand that Iran suspend activities that could yield nuclear fuel for power plants or bombs as the precondition for talks to implement an offer of trade incentives for Tehran.

But diplomats say all but Washington are quietly amenable to a face-saving compromise that could let Iran suspend uranium enrichment after the incentives negotiations begin, with Britain sitting on the fence over the issue.

MORE REUTERS PR RAI2225