A senior Iranian envoy abruptly announced Wednesday that
last-ditch talks on his country's disputed nuclear program were
postponed, moving Teheran a step closer to UN sanctions after it
defied a deadline to freeze uranium enrichment.
The talks had been tentatively set for Wednesday in Vienna as a
final attempt to see if there was common ground to start
negotiations between Iran and the six nations that have been trying
to persuade Iran to limit its nuclear program.
But while the European Union's Javier Solana had been ready to
fly to the Austrian capital at short notice, the talks had been
left hanging by uncertainty over whether Iranian nuclear envoy Ali
Larijani would come.
"We will not have the meeting today in Vienna," said Ali Ashgar
Soltanieh, the chief Iranian envoy to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). "Both sides are arranging (a meeting) for a
couple of days later."
There was no immediate comment from Solana's office in Brussels.
But although Soltanieh said the decision to postpone any meeting
had been mutual, it appeared that Iranian reluctance to attend had
scuttled the chance of talks Wednesday.
Soltanieh said "a procedural matter" had led to the
postponement, but offered no details. In Teheran, Foreign Minister
Manoucher Mottaki said only the time and place of any meeting
continued to be "under discussion by both sides."
Iran defied an August 31 deadline by the UN Security Council to
freeze uranium enrichment.
Still, the five permanent council members and Germany the six
powers attempting to entice Iran into negotiating on its nuclear
program had decided to hold off starting work on sanctions until
the outcome of any talks between Solana and Larijani.
Senior negotiators of those six countries were to meet in Berlin
today to plan their further Iran strategy.
Russia appeared to be contemplating the possibility of sanctions
although comments by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated
Moscow continued to oppose harsh and quick UN Security Council
punishment.
"We'll decide whether or not to make use of these measures in a
complex way, but guided by just one goal to prevent the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Lavrov was quoted as
saying by the Interfax news agency. "We are also aware that
economic pressure should be proportional to a real threat to peace
and security."
Lavrov spoke to reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa, where
he was accompanying President Vladimir Putin on a state visit.
He said the UN Security Council's recent resolution on Iran hold
out the possibility of further measures on Iran including those
spelled out in Article 41 of the UN Charter. The article allows
punishments that do not involve the use of armed force, such as
economic penalties, banning air travel or breaking diplomatic
relations.
(China Daily September 7, 2006)
