Brussels, 01/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - In parallel to negotiations being carried out by Germany, France and the United Kingdom (EU-3) on behalf of the EU with Tehran, with the aim of getting Iran's uranium enrichment activities permanently suspended, the EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana met Iranian vice president Gholamreza Aghazadeh on Tuesday in Brussels. According to Solana's spokesperson Christina Gallach, Mr Solana had pointed out to Mr Aghazadeh that Europeans were demanding that Iran provided objective guarantees on the peaceful nature of these objective guarantees. Mr Solana said that the EU was determined to continue its dialogue “in all good faith” with Tehran on the nuclear issue. He also hoped that this would be a success. He highlighted the main European objective - that of ensuring the “non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East”. Mr Aghazadeh was hoping that his meeting with Mr Solana would provide an “”additional dynamic” to negotiations. He confirmed that negotiations would be carried out normally and would “progress”. He also underlined the Iranians' interest in obtaining a negotiations process that was swift. Mr Solana's secretariat announced the likely setting up in March of a standing committee, made up of EU-3 foreign affairs ministers, the High Representative for CFSP and the Iranian Negotiator-in-Chief, Hassan Rohani, who would be able to evaluate the progress of negotiations informally. The Commission and Council will also be continuing their negotiations begun on 12 January (EUROPE 13 January p 13) with Iran for concluding a vast cooperation and bilateral trade agreement.
On Monday, Iran again demonstrated its determination to start up its enrichment activities again. Hassan Rohani said in an interview in the Hamshahri daily on Monday that the suspension period would not be very long and would be valid for the negotiations period on the conditions that negotiations made progress. He also said that in the future they would very certainly recommence enrichment and that the length of the suspension period would depend on a lot of factors. Rohani added that, “our objective is to be able to pursue our enrichment activities and at the same time provide the necessary guarantees for the international community that these activities are peaceful. The goal of the negotiations is to reach an understanding with the Europeans”.