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Talks meant to nudge Iran toward heeding UN Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment collapsed Saturday,with Tehran shrugging off calls by six world powers to cease the activity that could be harnessed to make nuclear arms.
Announcing the failure of two days of negotiations,EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said no new date for another meeting had been set. She blamed what the six consider unrealistic demands by Iran an end to UN sanctions and agreement that Iran could continue to enrich – for the disappointing results.
Proposals by the six for improved UN monitoring of Irans nuclear activities were rejected by Tehran,as were attempts to kickstart dialogue through reviving a subset of international talks focusing on Iran shipping a limited amount of its enriched uranium in exchange for fuel for its research reactor.
We had hoped to have a detailed and constructive discussion of those ideas, Ashton said. But it became clear that the Iranian side was not ready for this unless we agree to preconditions related to enrichment and sanctions.
Both these preconditions are not the way to proceed, she told reporters.
While no new talks were planned,Ashton said our proposals remain on the table.
Our door remains open. Our telephone lines remain open. The process can go forward if Iran chooses to respond positively, she said. We will now wait to see whether they do.
Irans chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said that any accord between Iran and world powers over its nuclear programme should be based on Tehrans right to nuclear technology,including uranium enrichment.
Any kind of talks and cooperation,as I underlined during the talks with Ashton,should be based on respecting the nations rights… including Irans right to nuclear technology,he said,specifying Irans right to a nuclear fuel cycle and uranium enrichment.
Tehran denies that it wants nuclear arms,insisting it wants only to make peaceful nuclear energy for its rising population. But concerns have grown – because its uranium enrichment program could also make fissile warhead material,because of its nuclear secrecy and also because the Islamic Republic refuses to cooperate with UN attempts to investigate suspicions that it ran experiments related to making nuclear weapons.
