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Tehran sticking to its guns despite pressure

Five weeks after the world's major powers offered Iran economic and political rewards if it agreed to freeze important nuclear activities, Iran has neither accepted nor rejected the offer, nor even set a date for when it would respond. And it has argued that the US and its allies have set unrealistic preconditions for talks.

Indeed, when the two sides met in Brussels on Tuesday, they simply talked past each other, again dashing expectations that the incentives proposal would reinvigorate negotiations. Instead, the talks have stalled, ensuring that nothing will be accomplished before the summit meeting of industrial countries that opens this weekend in St Petersburg, Russia.

"We're still talking about the framework for talks, not at all about the substance," one European official said. In effect, Iran has begun negotiating on its own terms, rejecting the six countries' condition that Tehran freeze all uranium-enrichment activities before substantive talks can begin, and daring them to do something about it.

Patience

"We should have more time -- be patient and try to negotiate," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters after three hours of meetings with Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, and senior European negotiators.

He said Iran would have to wait until various committees studying the proposal had time to finish their work, adding that Iran had the legal right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to continue enriching uranium.

In addition to refusing to cease enrichment, Iranian officials are skeptical that the West will deliver on whatever incentives are agreed upon, particularly light-water nuclear reactors.

And there appear to be divisions among the Iranians on how hard a line to pursue in negotiations.

That the two sides failed to bridge the gaps was painfully obvious in the terse public statements by Larijani and Solana. They did not characterize the talks as positive. There was no warmth between them. They took no questions. They did pledge to stay in contact.

European officials were furious, saying their governments had been lured into talking to Iran while that country was still enriching uranium and while action at the UN's Security Council was on hold.

Larijani also asked for unambiguous assurances that the world powers were "sincere," noting that talk about regime change in Iran created an atmosphere of distrust, a European official said.

The talks on Tuesday included representatives from Russia, France, Germany and Britain for the first time since Solana presented the offer in Tehran on June 6.

US absent

The US was not at the table because it had agreed to meet with Iran only after Iran froze its uranium enrichment and formal negotiations began. China, the sixth country involved, did not send a representative.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers of France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China met yesterday in Paris with Solana to discuss the next steps, including whether to take Iran's case to the Security Council once again for possible punishment. Given the resistance by Russia and China to punitive action, deciding on a unified plan of action may prove difficult.

To some officials, the Iranians' refusal to take a stand is nothing more than stalling while they continue to produce enriched uranium, which can be used to generate energy or fuel bombs.

Iranian officials say otherwise, demanding first that there be no preconditions in advance of formal negotiations. These officials have also said the incentives package came only after Tehran succeeded in running a 164-centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium. To give up their only bargaining chip would be foolish, they say.

A second demand from Tehran is that it be given guarantees that the incentives will be delivered. Iranian officials have said they have no confidence that the Bush administration will provide sophisticated technology, particularly if there is opposition from Congress.
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