Envoy: Iran-EU Nuclear Talks Postponed

Iranian Foreign Minister, Manoucher Mottaki, speaks with media in a joint press conference with U.N Secretary General Kofi Annan, unseen, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Sept. 3, 2006. "On the nuclear issue, the president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and commitment to hold negotiations" with Western powers to find a solution to the impasse over Tehran's nuclear activities, Annan told a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) (Vahid Salemi - AP)

VIENNA, Austria -- Talks meant to give Tehran a last chance to avoid U.N. sanctions over its nuclear defiance were postponed Wednesday, with a senior Iranian envoy saying "a procedural matter" had caused a delay of several days.

"We will not have the meeting today in Vienna," Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency told The Associated Press. "Both sides are arranging for a couple of days later."

The talks had been tentatively set for Wednesday in Vienna as a final attempt to see if there was common ground to start negotiations between Iran and the six nations that have been trying to persuade Iran to curtail its nuclear program.

But while the European Union's Javier Solana had been ready to fly to the Austrian capital at short notice, the talks had been left hanging by uncertainty over whether Iranian nuclear envoy Ali Larijani would come.

There was no immediate comment from Solana's office in Brussels. Although Soltanieh said the decision to postpone any meeting had been mutual, it appeared that Iranian reluctance to attend had scuttled the chance of Wednesday talks.

Soltanieh said "a procedural matter" had led to the postponement, but offered no details. In Tehran, Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki said only the time and place of any meeting was still "under discussion by both sides."

Iran defied an Aug. 31 deadline by the U.N. Security Council to freeze uranium enrichment.

Still, the five permanent council members and Germany _ the six powers attempting to entice Iran into negotiating on its nuclear program _ had decided to hold off work on imposing sanctions until the outcome of any talks between Solana and Larijani.

Senior negotiators of those six countries were to meet in Berlin on Thursday to plan their further Iran strategy.

Iran's unyielding stance appears to be based on the calculation that sanctions will be opposed by Russia and China, both veto-wielding Security Council members that have major commercial ties with Iran. The United States and key European allies Britain and France had agreed to wait for the result of talks between Solana and Larijani in an attempt to mollify both Moscow and Beijing.

In Moscow on Tuesday, a top Kremlin aide said Russia remained reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran, although this did not imply support for a nuclear-armed Iran.

"We could suffer more than anyone else if they built nuclear weapons," said Igor Shuvalov, a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin.