EU's Solana open to meeting with Iran's Larijani

BRUSSELS, Feb 8 (Reuters) EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said today he was open to meeting Iran's chief nuclear negotiator at a security conference in Munich as the United States presses Europe to get tougher with Tehran.

Iranian national security chief Ali Larijani said yesterday he planned ''negotiations'' with Western officials at the February 9-11 conference. European Union diplomats suggested any contacts would be exploratory, not full-fledged negotiations.

It would be the first such face-to-face contacts since the United Nations in December imposed sanctions on Iran over its atomic energy programme, which the West fears may be a disguised nuclear bomb project but which Iran says is wholly peaceful.

Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for nuclear power plants or, if refined to high levels, bombs, led to the breakdown in October of talks between Iran and world powers conducted by Solana.

The United States, China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain had offered trade incentives to Iran to halt enrichment.

Solana told Reuters that a meeting would depend on the timing of his and Larijani's visits to Munich.

''If he is there at the same time I am there, then maybe there is the possibility of a short meeting. For the moment I have not agreed on anything as I don't know what time I'll be there and what time he will be there,'' he said.

An EU diplomat said the two men did plan to meet. He said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier might have a formal meeting with Larijani in Munich. Germany is the current holder of the presidency of the 27-nation European Union.

''The idea of trying to re-establish dialogue or at least offering it ... isn't unrealistic,'' another EU diplomat told Reuters in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iranian nuclear sites, is based.

A spokeswoman for Solana said contacts had never been broken off between him and Larijani since their last meeting in Berlin in September. She said they had spoken by telephone and communicated indirectly.

Larijani, who was quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency, did not say whom he would meet or what he would discuss.

He has previously said he will not meet US officials, who insist they will only talk once Iran stops enriching uranium.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates are also expected to attend the meeting.

Solana deflected criticism of Europe's approach to the sanctions by Washington's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying: ''We are complying with the resolution.'' The US envoy, Gregory Schulte, praised the EU for swiftly implementing the UN resolution, which bans trade in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology.

But he repeated US warnings that Europeans could and should do more, including ending credits subsidising exports to Iran and taking other measures to discourage investment.

Diplomats say there has been internal EU resistance to US pressure for steps to cut off trade with Iran. Germany is the EU's biggest exporter to Iran, while Italy is the EU's biggest purchaser of Iranian energy resources.

REUTERS BDP HS2253