EU, Iran set for nuclear talks

2005-12-10 20:19

Vienna - The European Union and Iran will hold nuclear talks on December 21 but expectations that Tehran will abandon sensitive nuclear activities are "very low", Western diplomats said.

Diplomats said the two sides would be meeting alone, and not with Russian experts as originally planned. The meeting will probably be held in Vienna, although this could change.

"December 21 is confirmed. It will probably be in Vienna but the venue is not totally locked up," said a diplomat, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

This information was confirmed by a second diplomat, who asked only to be identified as a European envoy.

The Western diplomat said: "Expectations are very low. The EU-3 (EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany) expects Iran to press for agreement on a pilot centrifuge plant. The EU-3 will make clear that that is unacceptable and that time is about to run out on the Iranians."

Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors or the raw material for nuclear devices.

The meeting is "to talk about talks", the European diplomat said, to see at a senior level if formal, possibly ministerial-level talks on winning guarantees that Iran will not make nuclear weapons can resume.

EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Tehran ended its suspension of uranium conversion, the first step towards making enriched uranium.

Losing patience

The climate for talks is now particularly bad since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set off an international furore with remarks this week questioning the Holocaust and suggesting that the "tumour" of the state of Israel be relocated to Europe.

Meanwhile, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said on Friday in Oslo, where he is to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, that the international community was losing patience with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said last week that Iran could soon resume making centrifuges and their parts and conducting "research" as Tehran insists on its right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

The EU and the US fear Iran is using its drive toward nuclear energy for electricity generation as a cover for developing nuclear weapons but Iran says its programme is peaceful.

The IAEA had in September found Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost two decades of hidden nuclear activities, a finding that requires eventual referral to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions.

But the IAEA in November put off taking Iran to the Council after the EU-3 agreed to give more time for new Russian diplomacy to work.

Russia, an Iranian ally which is building the Islamic Republic's first nuclear power reactor, has proposed allowing Iran to conduct uranium enrichment in Russia, rather than Iran.

Iran refuses however to give up the right to enrichment on its territory.

- AFP