Rice sees no sign Iran to drop sensitive atom work

MADRID, June 1 (Reuters) Iran has not provided any evidence to suggest it is willing to freeze sensitive nuclear work, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today following talks between Tehran and the European Union.

Rice said on arrival in Madrid, where EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani met yesterday, that she had not yet been briefed on the substance of the meeting.

''But I hope they were constructive,'' Rice told reporters travelling with her. ''The only question is: are we getting to a point where the Iranians are prepared to suspend (sensitive nuclear work) so that negotiations can begin?'' ''I don't see any evidence of it but I frankly haven't had a chance to speak to Javier (Solana) since the talks concluded.'' Rice said she would speak to Solana today or tomorrow. Her busy schedule in Spain included talks with the king, prime minister and foreign minister before heading back to Washington.

The EU-Iran talks produced no breakthrough on the core dispute -- Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment as a condition for negotiations on trade benefits, despite the spectre of a third round of punitive UN sanctions against it.

But Solana said Iran, which has the world's second largest oil and gas reserves, indicated more willingness to cooperate with inquiries by the United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, into the nature of its programme.

EU and Iranian officials denied Larijani had made a concrete pledge to resolve long outstanding questions which the IAEA has about Iranian nuclear activity in a specified time frame.

''Larijani did say they would look at the issues positively with the IAEA and implied they would like to resolve them. It was an encouraging statement unsolicited by us,'' a senior EU diplomat familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

''But I don't think even with the best will in the world you could describe it as a real kind of undertaking. They would have to discuss it with the agency (anyway).'' RICE DEMANDS FULL COMPLIANCE Iran has said it would clear up questions only if the UN Security Council restored authority over its file to the IAEA.

Iran says its programme is solely for electricity generation but Western powers suspect it wants to build atom bombs.

Uranium enrichment is a process of refining uranium for power plants, or if taken to a very high degree, atom bombs.

There have been suggestions the West might settle for a partial enrichment halt to nudge Iran into negotiations but Rice has rejected that, saying only full compliance would be enough.

''Iran must not use those negotiations as cover to keep UN activity at bay,'' she said.

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has suggested the Western policy of withholding enrichment capability from Iran is obsolete because Iran already has the technology. He cautioned today against military action to halt Iran's nuclear programme and said he did not want to see another war like that in Iraq.

''I have no brief other than to make sure we don't go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran','' he told BBC radio.

Asked who the ''new crazies'' were, he said: ''Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose your will by force.'' The United States and Israel have mooted military action as a last resort against Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to curb its nuclear activity.

REUTERS DS KN2029