Iran and European Union Postpone Talks

Head of the U.S. delegation to the IAEA Gregory Schulte, right, talks to IAEA's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei prior to the start of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors meeting, on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006, at Vienna's International Center. (AP Photo/Hans Punz) (Hans Punz - AP)

VIENNA, Austria -- The European Union's foreign policy chief and Iran's top nuclear negotiator on Wednesday abruptly postponed talks on easing tensions over the refusal of the Tehran regime to suspend uranium enrichment.

Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy official Javier Solana, did not say what prompted the decision to downgrade Thursday's meeting in Paris to the level of aides to Solana and Ali Larijani, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator.

But the decision of the two principals to stay away from what would have been their third meeting in a week suggested snags had developed from their direct contacts over the weekend.

The absence of Solana and Larijani was bound to dampen high expectations for the meeting. Their two sessions in Vienna had been described by both men as making progress toward solving the impasse over Tehran's defiance of a U.N. Security Council that it freeze enrichment.

Members of delegations familiar with the outcome of the talks Saturday and Sunday had said Iran suggested it was ready to consider suspending enrichment for up to two months.

But the officials also told The Associated Press that Iran continued to refuse pressure to stop enrichment before talks with a six-nation alliance meant to resolve the nuclear standoff, even though those nations conditioned starting negotiations on a freeze.

In Dakar Senegal, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that his country's nuclear standoff with the West can be solved through dialogue, and called for unspecified "new conditions" in negotiations.

Ahmedinejad, on an hours-long stopover in Senegal en route to Cuba for a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, said the debate over Iranian nuclear enrichment could be solved peacefully.

"We're partisans of dialogue and negotiation. We believe that we can resolve our problems in a space of dialogue and justice _ together," he told reporters.

Oil-rich Iran says it needs uranium enrichment to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity. Enrichment can also create material for atomic bombs, however, and the United States and other nations suspect that is Tehran's real goal.

Gallach, the EU spokeswoman, said the results of the meeting Thursday would be reported to Iran's capital and EU headquarters before a decision on scheduling further talks between Solana and Larijani.

In a telephone call from the EU offices in Brussels, Belgium, Gallach said the two aides meeting Thursday _ EU negotiator Robert Cooper and Javad Vaeidi, deputy head of Iran's powerful National Security Council _ had also held talks in Vienna on Tuesday.