European nations have called on Iran to reconsider proposals for nuclear co-operation as international support for referring Tehran to the UN Security Council next week ebbed.
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana made a joint appeal to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after tough talks with his foreign minister and national security adviser at United Nations headquarters.
Mr Ahmadinejad has raised the stakes by offering to share his country's atomic know-how with other Islamic nations in the Middle East and Africa, alarming the United States.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the Europeans still hoped to avoid referring Iran's secretive nuclear programme to the UN body but the next step depended on proposals that Mr Ahmadinejad has promised to announce tomorrow.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the EU offer of economic, security and technological incentives was still on the table and the key now lay with the Iranian proposals.
The ministers reported no breakthrough, however, and an EU diplomat said Iran was unyielding on a European demand that it resume a freeze on uranium conversion - a precursor to enriching fuel that can be used in nuclear power stations or to make a bomb.
Faced with substantial opposition, the EU and the United States backed away from an attempt to have the world nuclear watchdog report Iran to the Security Council next week.
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted Iran's fear of international isolation gave the Europeans and their US ally continued leverage over Tehran, although she conceded Washington and its allies may lack a convincing majority on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency when it meets next Monday.
The EU3 handed Iran proposals on August 5th for economic, security and nuclear co-operation provided it ended sensitive nuclear work. Tehran rejected them and promptly restarted uranium conversion at a plant that had been frozen.