Iran Makes Proposals before UN Powers Meet

30/01/2006| IslamWeb

Iran outlined proposals to the European Union to calm its nuclear row with the West on Monday, but a British official said they contained nothing new.

Tehran put its ideas to officials of EU powers Britain, France and Germany in Brussels just hours before the United States and its European allies were due to try to persuade Russia and China to back tough diplomatic action against it.

"We didn't hear anything new that we hadn't heard already," British diplomat John Sawers said after the talks with Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Vaeedi spoke of a "positive outcome" and said more talks could be scheduled. An Iranian diplomat said his country had put forward "suggestions" at the talks, but not a compromise plan.

Iran is striving to head off any move by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program when the IAEA's governing board holds crisis talks in Vienna on Thursday.

In another bid to stave off referral, Iran let U.N. nuclear inspectors check equipment from the former military site of Lavisan at the weekend, a senior diplomat said in Vienna.

Lack of IAEA access to Lavisan had loomed large in the U.S.-EU push to have Iran reported to the Security Council over suspicions it is seeking atom bombs, not just nuclear power.

Foreign ministers of the EU trio and the United States will meet their Russian and Chinese counterparts in London over dinner in the evening to seek a strategy for the IAEA meeting.

Russia and China are reluctant to see the issue go to the Security Council, where they wield veto powers.

Both are wary of any move to impose U.N. sanctions that could hurt their commercial interests. Russia is helping to build Iran's first atomic reactor and China relies on oil from Iran, the world's fourth-biggest exporter of crude.

"We are still arguing for Iran to be reported to the Security Council," an EU diplomat said.

RUSSIAN PROPOSAL

A diplomat with access to the Iranian position said Iran had prepared a six-point statement for the talks in Brussels.

This included acceptance, with unspecified amendments, of Moscow's offer to enrich Iranian uranium. The West sees that idea as a safeguard against military diversion of atomic fuel.

Russia and the EU have previously said Iran must reinstate a moratorium on fuel research and enrichment it broke on January 9.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said if Iran did not change its stance, it would end up at the Security Council.

"I don't think this issue will be solved by talking. Of course, talking is always good, but we want action," he told Reuters television. "They have broken the seals (on uranium enrichment equipment) and they must change that."

Russia said it was considering inviting China to participate in the proposed enrichment project.

"Iran suggested including China. Now consultations are under way to assess how viable that proposal is," Interfax news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin as saying.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, arriving for an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, said Iran's request for a meeting with the EU trio showed it was worried.

"The fact that Iran asked for these discussions this morning -- they're not negotiations -- illustrates the fact that Iran, though a difficult nation to negotiate with, is concerned about its international position," he told reporters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, due in London for an Afghan donors' conference, called on Sunday for the IAEA meeting to be delayed to allow time for more negotiations.

Russia has suggested the IAEA could ask the Security Council simply to discuss Iran and then send it back to the IAEA.

India plans to abstain in any vote at Thursday's meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board, senior Indian officials said.

The U.S. ambassador to India, David Mulford, said last week that if India did not oppose Tehran at the IAEA, a landmark India-U.S. nuclear cooperation pact could be in trouble.

"We cannot vote with the U.S. after his comments. We're planning to abstain," said one official, asking not to be named.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki (R) and Omani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Youssef Bin Alawi Bin Abdollah at a news conference in Tehran, January 29, 2006. (Reuters)