US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the EU clashed on Tuesday over how to handle Iran's nuclear program, taking the shine off what was billed as a post-Iraq war fence-mending visit to Brussels.
After what he called a "very candid discussion" with EU foreign ministers, Powell said a draft resolution on Iran proposed by the bloc's three major powers was not tough enough on Tehran's non-compliance with nuclear treaty obligations.
Along with tension over steel trade and European prisoners held at the US Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba, the divide over how to deal with Iran marred determined efforts by both sides to put months of bitter wrangling over Iraq behind them.
PHOTO: AFP
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini voiced the EU's satisfaction that Washington had agreed to quicken the return of sovereignty to Iraq, something many of the bloc's 15 nations had demanded since the end of the US-led war.
But differences surfaced over Iran, two days before the UN nuclear watchdog's board is due to debate a report on that country's atomic program.
Powell said he was pleased Iran now seemed to be moving in the right direction in cooperating with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
But he said the Americans had some reservations about the resolution and wanted to talk to their EU colleagues about whether it was strong enough.
He said it was not clear a resolution could be crafted that could be backed by all 35 members of the IAEA board.
Later, speaking to reporters on a flight from Brussels to London, Powell described the resolution as "not adequate."
"It did not have the trigger mechanisms in the case of further Iranian intransigence or difficulty," he said before joining US President George W. Bush on a three-day visit to Britain.
Washington says Tehran's nuclear project conceals efforts to develop weapons. Iran insists it is for peaceful civilian purposes, but admits it failed to disclose uranium enrichment activities and plants.
The US has said it wants the IAEA to find Iran in breach of the treaty and report it to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
But diplomats said the text offered by London, Paris and Berlin was milder, did not mention the Security Council and only spoke of past "failures to meet safeguards obligations."
An EU official said Powell told the Europeans Washington preferred no resolution to a weak one.
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