IRAN: Germany, France and Britain rejected a last-ditch offer of talks with Iran over its nuclear programme yesterday and instead pushed to get the UN security council involved in the dispute.
Foreign ministers from the so- called EU-3 also met their Chinese and Russian counterparts to garner their support for increasing pressure on Iran, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suspects is trying to develop a nuclear bomb.
The offer of fresh talks by Tehran was dismissed as nothing new by the EU-3 foreign ministers, whose meeting with the Chinese and Russian ministers in London followed a formal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday. The EU-3 said the offer was merely a new attempt to delay moves to refer Iran to the security council.
"The negotiating process has reached an impasse and the involvement of the security council is needed to ensure that the requests - many times repeated - of the agency are respected," said French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy at the Brussels meeting.
He said a meeting with Iranian officials yesterday had yielded nothing new. However, negotiations could be reopened if Tehran complied with the IAEA requests. The EU-3 are supporting efforts by the IAEA to report Iran to the security council over its nuclear activities.
The IAEA's governing board is to hold talks in Vienna on Thursday to discuss the crisis, and is seeking support from China and Russia for a referral to the security council. This could ultimately lead to UN sanctions being imposed on Iran.
Iran recently announced that it would resume enrichment- related activities. It said its nuclear programme is designed simply to generate nuclear energy, but the IAEA is gravely concerned about the programme.
EU ministers called on Iran to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.
Russia and China have been reluctant to see Iran referred to the security council, lest this lead to sanctions that could hurt their business interests.
But they also have concerns and Russia has offered to enrich Iranian uranium on its soil as a safeguard against any diversion for military use. Iran has voiced interest in the proposal, but the US and EU remain sceptical.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers issued a warning to the Belarussian prime minister Alexander Lukashenko not to interfere with the presidential elections planned for March. In a statement they said they were deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation over democracy, human rights and political freedom in Belarus. The EU also threatened further restrictive measures against any individuals responsible for a failure to uphold international standards in the electoral process.
The EU and US have already decided to withhold travel visas to officials from Belarus.