The United States, China, Britain, France, Russia and Germany agreed at a meeting on Tuesday to give European negotiator Javier Solana more time to try to reach a diplomatic solution with Tehran.
But French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters “we’re expecting a quick response from the Iranians” and a French diplomat speaking anonymously set the deadline as the first week of October.
The six major powers have offered Tehran economic and political inducements if it suspends uranium enrichment activities the West believes Iran is pursuing as part of a nuclear weapons program but which Tehran says is only aimed at generating electricity.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, speaking separately with reporters, said: “We’ve given Solana the mandate to go anywhere at any time in order to overcome the logistical difficulties which have so beset the Iranians. But that is not limited.”
Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones-Parry, said the chief Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani, “definitely” was not coming to New York for talks with Solana as expected.
But an Iranian official in Tehran said Larijani and Solana spoke by telephone on Wednesday and decided to meet next week in an undisclosed European capital.
This is the third time a recent planned Solana-Lariani meeting has been postponed, leading U.S. and European officials to believe there is an active debate going on in Iran about the nuclear program.
