Brussels, 05/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - While at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, German, British and French diplomats were meeting with their Iranian counterparts to continue negotiations over Iran's nuclear capacity, the Dutch Presidency, in the conclusions of the European Council, sent out a positive message to Iran on Friday. In its conclusions, it pointed out that the negotiations over a trade and cooperation agreement with Iran would resume once it was certain that Iran had suspended its uranium enrichment programmes.
The European Council said that it would work towards relaunching sustainable cooperation with Iran in the long term, covering political, trade and technical aspects. The Council underlined the importance of becoming confident about the peaceful nature and transparency of Iran's nuclear programme. At the same time, it reaffirmed its desire for Iran to fully and sustainably suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activity and to decide to do so voluntarily. Such a suspension would open the way, explained the Council, for discussions about long term, mutually beneficial cooperation.
Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot told reporters that the EU required of Iran that it stood by full and complete suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. All other discussions about the political and trade dimensions will only be started when the Iranians have answered our proposals, he said. The Presdinent of the Council said the EU was eagerly awaiting Iran's reply. Bot said the EU was following a 'carrot and stick' policy to convince Iran to cease enriching uranium. The carrot is relaunching the trade agreement and the stick is the United Nations Security Council, Bot told reporters.
Asked about the possible use of force to ensure Iran respected the demands of the West, Bot said that US military strikes on Teheran would be counter-productive and it would be better to pursue dialogue and convince the Iranians that there are other ways of having a nuclear programme. We cannot wait for ever, said Bot, but said the EU had clear indications that Iran wanted to make progress in its negotiations with Germany, France and the UK. In response to the same question, British foreign minister Jack Straw said that US military action against Iran was 'inconceivable'.