Iran, EU Nuclear Talks End Without Result

VIENNA- AFP- Talks between European Union negotiators and Iran over its nuclear ambitions broke up Friday without any agreement, ministers said.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the EU had been demanding "full and complete suspension" of enrichment and related activities.

"Unfortunately we were not able to reach an agreement," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters after meeting with Iranian negotiators for just over two hours.

The talks took place just three days before a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board. The board put the U.S. Security Council on alert Feb. 4 after Iran refused to heed requests to reimpose a suspension on enrichment, which can make both nuclear fuel or the fissile material for warheads.

Douste-Blazy, his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a senior British official met with Iranian chief negotiator Ali Larijani after his arrival from Moscow, where Russia tried to persuade Iran to accept its offer to enrich uranium for Iran.

Before leaving Moscow, Larijani warned that handing over the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council — as the United States has demanded — would kill Moscow's initiative.

A Russian nuclear agency official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, confirmed the Moscow talks had snagged over Iran's refusal to freeze enrichment.

The Russian plan — backed by most in the international community including the U.S. and the Europeans — is meant to deprive the Iranians of domestic control of all enrichment.

Iran restarted some enrichment activities last month, after voluntarily freezing the program during talks last year with France, Germany and Britain.

While the Security Council is waiting until the end of next week's board meeting to decide further action, its involvement reflects the level of concern surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions. Tehran insists it wants enrichment only to generate electricity and that it does not seek nuclear arms, but a growing number of nations share U.S. fears that that is not the case.

U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte told lawmakers Wednesday in Washington that the risk of Iran's acquiring nuclear arms and merging them with ballistic missile systems was "a reason for immediate concern."

Providing what he said Thursday were secret details of those missile programs, Iranian opposition figure Alireza Jafarzadeh told the AP that Iran had "significantly increased the production line" of its Shahab 3 missiles last year, and was now turning out 90 a year — more than four times its previous production rate.

The most advanced Shahab has a range of nearly 1,200 miles, he said. That is enough to target arch-foe Israel.

There was no independent confirmation of the information, which Jafarzadeh said he received from sources inside Iran.