“A few days ago the EU3 accepted the request of Iran to resume negotiations. But the starting pistol for the resumption of talks has not been been shot yet,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the German parliament after a visit to the United States.
He said the resumption of talks was “conditional on Iran sending signals that it will … accept a solution that allows it to get peaceful nuclear energy but rules out the possibility that Iran will have a closed fuel cycle.”
For the so-called EU3, preventing Iran from getting a “closed fuel cycle” means that it can never be permitted to enrich uranium, a technology that would enable Tehran to make fuel for power plants or atomic weapons. Iran refuses to give up uranium enrichment, which it says is a sovereign right.
Officials from the EU3 and Iran had planned to meet next week in Vienna to discuss a Russian proposal under which Tehran would continue less-sensitive uranium conversion work in Iran but transfer the critical enrichment stage to Russia. However, EU diplomats said neither time nor venue had been set.
