AFP: The European Union and Iran gave themselves breathing space in their talks on Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme on Wednesday by agreeing to return to the table in August — after Iran’s presidential elections next month. Following a three-hour meeting in Geneva with Iran’s chief negotiator Hassan Rowhani, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, representing the 25-member EU, pledged to come up with concrete proposals on cooperation by the end of July.
AFP
by Jean-Michel Stoullig
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While prohibiting the expansion of nuclear weapons capability to new countries, like Iran, the NPT outlines a country’s right to nuclear power for civilian use.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said the future European proposals would “notably deal with the establishment of a nculear programme in Iran that is exclusively destined for civilian use”.
But Barnier ruled out the likelihood of a deal that would include uranium conversion, one of the key capabilities of the nuclear plant in Isfahan that Iran wants to reopen.
Conversion is an initial stage in the nuclear fuel treatment cycle which is a precursor to enrichment.
“There is no concrete proposal on the table at this stage,” said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
“We have our different positions and it is not easy to narrow them,” he added.
An Iranian diplomat told AFP that Iran had managed to convince the EU-3 to make its “detailed” proposals earlier, in late July or August, instead of in September.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who also took part in the meeting, said talks would not resume until Tehran responded to the EU proposals.
“The afternoon was hard and we have to expect tough negotiations,” said spokeswoman Christina Gallach.
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