Iran steps up EU diplomacy

By Gareth Smyth 
January 30, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f965ad0a-9135-11da-a628-0000779e2340.html

One of Iran's most senior security officials is due in Brussels today to meet senior diplomats from France, Germany and Britain, just hours before EU foreign ministers and other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council meet to strike a compromise on referring Iran to the UN over its nuclear programme.
Javad Vaeedi, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, will meet political directors from the three EU countries, who earlier this month said their two-year talks with Iran had reached a dead end and could not resume unless Tehran ended nuclear research that it restarted recently.
Mr Vaeedi's visit comes at the start of a week of diplomatic moves culminating with Thursday's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, at which the US and EU had originally hoped to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme.
The Europeans - who later today will also meet the US, China and Russia in London to discuss Iran's case - have played down the significance of Mr Vaeedi's trip.
These are not negotiations, said one EU diplomat. Iran has requested a meeting . . . we will listen to what they've got to say.
Hamid-Reza Asefi, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, said yesterday that Iran wanted to continue talks about the Russian plan, referring to Moscow's proposal for Tehran to enrich all its uranium in Russia as a means of allaying international concerns over Iran diverting nuclear fuel into a weapons programme.
Tehran has to date insisted it would want to maintain some pilot enrichment activity in Iran.
The EU, which is leading western diplomatic efforts on the situation, is now expected to offer Tehran one last chance by delaying substantive Security Council discussion until March to satisfy objections from Russia and China that the EU and US have been too hasty in seeking a referral.
Additional reporting by Daniel Dombey in Brussels