ISTANBUL — Talks meant to nudge Iran toward heeding UN Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment collapsed Saturday, with Teheran 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.
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Iran begins nuclear talks with 6 world powers in TurkeyProposals by the six for improved UN monitoring of Iran's nuclear activities were rejected by Teheran, as were attempts to kickstart dialogue through reviving a subset of international talks focusing on Iran shipping out a limited amount of its enriched uranium in exchange for fuel for its research reactor, Ashton said.
"We had hoped to have a detailed and constructive discussion of those ideas," she 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."
Teheran 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.
While the six went into the first day of talks Friday formally focused
at freezing Iran's uranium enrichment program, Teheran has repeatedly
said this activity is not up for discussion. Instead, Iranian officials
came to the table with an agenda that covered just about everything
except its nuclear program: global disarmament, Israel's suspected
nuclear arsenal, and Tehran's concerns about US military bases in Iraq
and elsewhere.
As talks resumed Saturday, Iranian delegate Abolfazl Zohrevand said the atmosphere was "positive."
"Both sides showed the willingness that a solution can be achieved to
reach active cooperation on various issues," he told AP Television News.
But diplomats from two other delegations familiar with the negotiations
were less bullish with one suggesting shortly before the end of the
meeting that the talks were in trouble because Iran was sticking to its
demands on the lifting of sanctions and acceptance of Iran's enrichment
activities.
