EU-Iranian talks break up without compromise

LONDON (AP) — An 18-month attempt to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment collapsed Friday after a senior EU envoy failed to dent Iran’s resolve to expand the technology, despite the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

As Iran’s foreign minister called for an end to U.N. Security Council involvement, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, sought to put his talks with the EU’s Javier Solana in a positive light, telling reporters the meeting was “good,” and saying the two men had agreed to meet again next month.

But Solana had a different message.

“After five hours of meetings, I expected more, and therefore I am disappointed,” he said. Unlike Jalili, he suggested no new meetings were planned, saying only the two men would talk on the telephone next month and would set up a personal encounter only “if circumstances permit.”

The meeting had been considered a last chance for Iran to give in to pressure from the five permanent U.N. Security Council nations and at least freeze — if not dismantle — its enrichment program before the end of the month, ahead of a new effort by the five nations to find common language on a third set of U.N. sanctions. Those endeavors were to be the focus of a meeting of the five nations plus Germany at a high-level gathering in Paris today.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon after the end of the London meeting, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged the Security Council to “put an end to its illegal consideration of Iran’s nuclear issue.”