EU welcomes Iran meeting, says too early for sanctions (Roundup)

Sep 14, 2009, 18:23 GMT

   Brussels - The European Union is ready to wait until October 1 talks with Iran before deciding on whether to impose sanctions on the country over its controversial nuclear programme, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Monday.

   'At the moment we're looking towards the possibility of a meeting between the Iranians and the 3+3 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany),' said Bildt, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.

   'Such a meeting will take place, and then we'll have to look at the Iranian answer and see if we can go somewhat more concretely into the different details,' Bildt said before chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

   Bildt was speaking shortly after officials in Tehran and Brussels confirmed that Iran was ready to meet the world's major powers for talks on its disputed nuclear programme on October 1.

   Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana 'spoke this morning and agreed on a date for talks ... of October 1,' Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said.

   Such a meeting, the venue for which has not yet been fixed, would be the first between the administration of Barack Obama and the Iranian government since the US president offered to talk to Tehran upon assuming office in January.

The world powers had insisted that they wanted Iran to respond to an offer of direct negotiations with the US by the beginning of the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month.

Comments made by EU foreign ministers in Brussels appeared to suggest that the US, Britain and France would be unable to convince Russia and China, the two other permanent members of the UN Security Council, to impose sanctions against Tehran.

   'There are specific requests ... by the (UN) Security Council, there are specific questions by the International Atomic Energy Agency which are grounded on specific concerns by Iran. And if there are specific answers to these specific issues, then this would go a long way to lifting the suspicions,' Bildt said.

   His Finnish colleague, Alexander Stubb, said that while matters should proceed in steps, the EU should consider imposing 'unilateral sanctions' against Iran if direct talks failed.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, meanwhile, expressed scepticism over the October 1 meeting.

'Do you know how many meetings we have had with Iran? Many, many, many. We will have one more, but I don't expect much from it,' Kouchner said.

   The West has long suspected that Iran's allegedly civilian nuclear programme is geared towards producing nuclear weapons.

   But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that Iran would not discuss 'its legitimate and ultimate nuclear rights with anyone.'

An EU diplomat, however, said Monday that the country's nuclear programme was 'a fundamental part of our relationship with Iran.'