EU set to back limited Iran sanctions

LUXEMBOURG, Oct 17: The European Union, spurred by North Korea's nuclear test, was set to back limited United Nations sanctions against Iran today after Tehran spurned conditions for opening negotiations on its nuclear programme.

The EU's 25 foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, were to discuss incremental measures targeted first at individuals and materials involved in Iranian uranium enrichment activities, which the West suspects is aimed at making a bomb.

After four months of talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Iran this month rejected a UN demand that it suspend enrichment.

''For that reason, we will not be able to avoid the Security Council now taking up consultations with the aim of a resolution on the first step in sanctions,'' German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.

Ministers arriving at the meeting made clear that alarm at North Korea's nuclear test and its implications for other countries were a key factor in the way they approached Iran, although their economic interests with Tehran are far greater.

''The most important thing is to have a united response as we showed with North Korea. We must show Iran that the international community is completely determined to remain united,'' European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

''We have shown great patience ... We offered a very attractive package which could be beneficial for Iran, but up to now we have not received an acceptance,'' she told reporters.

Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs Alberto Navarro said sanctions would be gradual because Europe, unlike the United States, needed Iran as an oil supplier.

DOOR OPEN Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the approach with Iran would be gentler than with North Korea. ''A sanctions resolution on Iran will not be swift or biting as it has been with North Korea,'' he said, noting that while Pyongyang openly affirmed its nuclear weapons intentions, Tehran insisted its programme was purely for civilian energy purposes.

There was no conclusive proof it sought an atom bomb, he said.

''EU nations are largely fed up with Iran for having offered a three-month suspension, then withdrawing it and saying not even one day is possible,'' Fitzpatrick said. ''Whether this has totally exhausted diplomatic patience remains unclear.'' Solana, who negotiated with Iranian national security chief Ali Larijani in a vain effort to persuade Tehran to suspend its most sensitive nuclear work, said the door would remain open.

''I think there is always hope, and I would like it to be possible to start again, but it is up to Iran now to accept the conditions to start real negotiations,'' he said.

The ministers will express deep concern that Iran has not yet suspended enrichment activities and say the EU has no choice but to support talks in the United Nations on measures on the basis of resolution 1696, but that the door remains open to negotiations.

Security Council resolution 1696 had told Iran to suspend enrichment by August 31 or face sanctions.

The six major powers that backed the incentives package that Solana put to Iran -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- are to start consultations at the United Nations on Wednesday on a sanctions resolution, diplomats said.

Moscow and Beijing have so far been extremely reticent about any sanctions, but a European diplomat said they had accepted the principle of an incremental approach raising pressure.

REUTERS