An expected showdown in Iran-EU nuclear talks yesterday in London should be more sound than fury as both sides feel the negotiations are basically on hold until after Iranian presidential elections in June, diplomats said.
"It is still not the end game. Look to June," a European diplomat close to the talks said.
Another diplomat said the talks, set to take place yesterday evening, would be at the level of political directors of foreign ministries but held secretly and away from the press.
In Tehran on Thursday a key Iranian negotiator said the Islamic Republic was "very pessimistic" since the EU has been dragging its feet.
Hossein Mussavian said: "Up until now and from the start of the process [in December], especially since the Paris meeting [March 23], the Europeans have not undertaken any serious step to bring it to a close."
In The Hague, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said that if the talks collapsed, "it is our right to restore the program" of uranium enrichment which has been halted to get the talks going, with Tehran promised trade, security and technology rewards if it makes the suspension permanent.
Iran is waiting for an answer from EU negotiators Britain, Germany and France to a proposal that would allow Iran to enrich uranium, a process that makes fuel for nuclear reactors but in highly refined form can be the explosive core of atom bombs.
The European trio is holding fast, however, to its position that Iran must give up on all nuclear fuel activity in order to provide "objective guarantees" that it will not make atomic weapons, diplomats said.
The US, which backs the EU diplomatic initiative but is not party to the talks, charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons and must be kept from obtaining the weapons breakout capability which enrichment represents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Jerusalem on Thursday that "Iran should abandon the creation of full nuclear cycle technologies and allow full international control of its nuclear facilities."
"Depending on how Iran acts on all these questions, we will act accordingly," said Putin, whose country is building Iran's first nuclear power reactor for civilian production of electricity.
Diplomats said the Iranians will not be able to make a deal with Europe on the nuclear issue until they have chosen a president.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
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