European Union foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana said today that Iran had been honest about its nuclear programme and should not be reported to the UN Security Council this week for potential sanctions.
His comments were in sharp contrast to the stance of the United States, which wants the UN nuclear watchdog to declare Tehran has not complied with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to report it to the Security Council.
They were also far less circumspect than a leaked International Atomic Energy Agency report, which said that although there was no evidence Iran was developing atomic weapons, it had failed to declare some of its nuclear activities in the past.
Mr Solana said it was up to Tehran now to comply with an agreement it reached with three EU foreign ministers last month to halt uranium enrichment and open all its nuclear facilities to intrusive spot checks by UN inspectors.
"They have been honest. Let's see if they continue this all the way to the end," he told reporters before talks with Mr Hassan Rohani, secretary of Iran's powerful National Security Council.
Mr Rohani, a conservative cleric close to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also met the foreign ministers of Britain and France, who along with Germany negotiated last month's deal offering the prospect of sharing technology if Iran ends uranium enrichment and accepts tough spot inspections.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the bloc's differences with Washington over Iran when they meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Brussels tomorrow.
Mr Solana said Brussels and Washington shared the same aim, but the Europeans believed engagement was a better way to make Iran comply rather than threats. The IAEA made it clear in last week's report on Iran that the inspection process was far from over and the jury was still out on whether Iran had in the past tried in secret to develop atomic bombs as Washington says.
US Undersecretary of State Mr John Bolton said that finding was "impossible to believe". He claimed the report underscored the US contention that "the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities makes sense only as part of a nuclear weapons programme".