US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday consulted the foreign ministers of key global powers, as an Iranian delegation postponed talks with the EU over its nuclear program.
The US State Department also said foreign ministers of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, plus Germany, would meet to discuss Iran on Wednesday in Paris, three days before the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg.
The diplomatic flurry came on a day when Rice warned Iran not to "stall" over an offer of incentives to curb its nuclear program, and reaffirmed a deadline of the middle of this month.
Her remarks coincided with a report by Iran's state IRNA news agency that talks in Brussels between Iran's lead negotiator Ali Larijani and the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana have been postponed until next Tuesday.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Rice held a conference call on Wednesday with EU High Representative Solana, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
He did not say if China, the other member of the so-called "P5 plus one" group was represented in the call, after it joined other members of the group at talks last week in Moscow.
"They took the opportunity to just touch base, see where we are in wake of the G8 ministerial," McCormack said.
McCormack also said that members of the group planned to meet face-to-face in Paris next Wednesday to discuss progress in the Iranian nuclear showdown.
Iran's official IRNA news agency earlier said fears of hit squads had led to the postponement of talks between an Iranian delegation and officials from the grouping plus Solana in Brussels.
"After receiving some news from Brussels that there are assassins' squads ... security officials voiced concern about the safety of the Iranian delegation" led by Larijani, IRNA said.
"Therefore today's trip of Mr Larijani and the accompanying delegation to Brussels was canceled," it added.
"After the European side gave the necessary guarantees to secure the lives of the Iranian delegation, it was decided that the session would be held next Tuesday," IRNA said, quoting an informed source.
Rice, meanwhile, upheld deadline of the middle of this month for Iran to accept an offer of incentives aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions and warned Tehran against stalling.
Leaders of the G8 industrial powers had been expecting to examine Iran's response at a meeting in Saint Petersburg starting on July 15, but, as in the past, Iran resisted all attempts to set a calendar.
Rice said on Wednesday that "we still intend to have a substantive response from Iran before the middle of July when the heads of state will meet in Saint Petersburg."
"It simply makes sense for the world to have some kind of indication of whether Iran intends to pursue the negotiated track or not," she told a joint press conference with Turkey's visiting deputy prime minister and foreign minister Abdullah Gul.
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