ElBaradei urges Iran to halt nuclear enrichment

BERLIN - Reuters - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, urged Iran on Monday to halt all uranium enrichment work to help revive collapsed nuclear talks between Tehran and the European Union.

His call for Iran to allay international concerns about its nuclear ambitions set the stage for a planned meeting in Berlin on Thursday of the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Britain, United States, Russia and China to try to break the deadlock on how to deal with Tehran.

ElBaradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters that in light of concerns that Iran's nuclear program may not be entirely peaceful it was important for Tehran to resume a moratorium of uranium enrichment it ended earlier this year.

"We are not in a position today to say that (Iran's nuclear) program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," ElBaradei said after meeting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"We would like Iran to suspend its enrichment program."

Tehran insists its program is aimed at the peaceful generation of electricity. But Germany, the rest of the European Union and the United States believe Iran is secretly developing the capability to produce atomic weapons.

ElBaradei said he hoped the result of the U.N. Security Council's "presidential statement" on Iran's nuclear program, currently being drafted in New York, would be the return of all parties to the negotiating table.

Two-and-a-half years of talks between Iran and the EU -- spearheaded by Germany, France and Britain -- reached an impasse earlier this year after Iran resumed research on its uranium enrichment program.

Steinmeier said there was still disagreement at the Security Council on the wording of the draft statement that would call on Iran to suspend its nuclear fuel program again and answer all the IAEA's outstanding questions about its nuclear activities.