EU may reopen N-talks with Iran

EU: The European Union is considering reopening talks with Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme, a move that could lead to tensions…

EU: The European Union is considering reopening talks with Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme, a move that could lead to tensions with the US.

Washington would like its allies to take a tougher line on the issue, in particular in referring the issue to the UN Security Council.

Senior diplomats from the "EU3" countries that led negotiations with Tehran - Britain, France and Germany - met this week to discuss resuming the talks, which broke down in August.

British prime minister Tony Blair has since criticised Iran for allegedly "interfering" in Iraq, adding that the UK would not be "intimidated" in the nuclear negotiations. But European diplomats still hope to restart talks.

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On Thursday Irna, Iran's official news agency, quoted "an official close to the country's negotiation team" as saying that talks could restart "in the near future". It gave no details.

The talks broke down when Iran rejected an EU offer in August and resumed uranium conversion, a preliminary stage in the nuclear fuel cycle it had agreed to suspend as part of its agreement with the EU3.

While Iran insists its intentions are purely peaceful, the EU and the US suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

"Of course, we would like a negotiated solution to this problem, but it has to be under the terms of the agreement," said a EU3 diplomat.

But the EU3 meeting this week, which was also attended by diplomats from Spain and Italy, was intended as a "brainstorm" on ways of restarting the talks despite the Iranians' decision to begin conversion.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has pushed the EU to resume the talks on a technical level.

He is thought to consider conversion a secondary issue compared with uranium enrichment, a process that can produce weapons grade material.