US and EU try to convince Russia on Iranian nuclear program

All five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany were to meet here later Monday to hammer out a joint position ahead of an emergency meeting Thursday in Vienna of the UN nuclear watchdog.

In Brussels, top officials from Britain, France and Germany, the EU troika which have been negotiating with Iran, met an Iranian delegation.

"It's good to talk, but their position has to change ... they know how to change, they know what they have to change," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

EU negotiations with Iran broke down this month after Tehran broke the UN seals on a key nuclear facility in breach of a November 2004 agreement.

"They have taken decisions that were absolutely incompatible with the commitments that they have made with the international agency and also to us," said Solana.

The 35-nation board of governors of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is to discuss an EU demand to send Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible punitive measures.

The United States and the EU fear Iran is using a nuclear program it says is peaceful to hide secret atomic weapons development.

But Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the Security Council and with extensive trade ties to Iran, are reluctant to back immediate UN action, with Moscow saying diplomacy needs more time.

Iran argued that talks with Russia on a potential compromise needed "more time".

"Our position is very clear. We will not back down," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

"But the government can, in the framework of a declared and acceptable policy, examine the Russian proposal. We can negotiate on the manner of its application," he said.

Moscow proposes that the process of enriching uranium into fuel be conducted in Russia as a way of keeping Iran from acquiring bomb-making technology while guaranteeing its access to nuclear energy.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters Sunday: "The Russian proposal has been on the table for quite some time and it's interesting that the Iranians have been expressing greater interest the closer we get to the vote to go to the Security Council."

"I think that says something about how really interested the Iranians are in the Russian proposal," Rice said.

Iran also has allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the former Lavizan military complex in Tehran after blocking this for more than a year, diplomats told AFP. The IAEA reported in November 2004 that Iran had tried to acquire equipment that could have been used in uranium enrichment at the Lavizan site.

Diplomats and analysts said the Iranian move is consistent with a tactic of making concessions when faced with an international crackdown.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation analyst at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "Iran is a master at providing just enough access and information to appear to be cooperative enough to get past the next (IAEA) board meeting without being sent to the Security Council."

"I expect that they have not provided access to all the sites the IAEA wanted nor access to the individuals the IAEA has sought to interview," he added.

A draft IAEA resolution by Britain, France and Germany is in line with US calls for action now on Iran and makes little concessions to calls for delay.

The four-page draft calls on the IAEA to notify the Security Council that questions over Iran's implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty "require action by the Security Council."

But Fitzpatrick said Washington is likely to give ground Monday as it needs wide support when the IAEA meets.

The resoluton will "get watered down. I think it would be better to go into the February 2 meeting with the P-5 linking arms and that will probably require a compromise on the part of the United States," said Fitzgerald.

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