Brussels, 12/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in exceptional circumstances on Thursday afternoon in Berlin, EU-3 (Germany, France and the UK) foreign ministers and the EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, decided to call for an extraordinary meeting of the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue as a matter of urgency, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced after the meeting, reported by AFP. “The time has come for the UN Security Council to be involved in order to strengthen the authority of the IAEA resolutions” on the Iranian nuclear dossier, a joint EU-3 declaration stresses. “We shall consult with our partners, and particular the Russians, Chinese and Americans, at the beginning of next week, to study how one can convene an early extraordinary IAEA governing board meeting”, which will have to decide on referring the matter to the Security Council, Mr Steinmeier said, before going on to specify that the EU-3 was, however, still ready to settle the matter of Iran's nuclear programme through “diplomatic means, in an international and peaceful framework”. The next meeting of the governing board in Vienna should take place early March. Sources close to Mr Solana say that the EU-3 should, in coming days, attempt to convince its partners to fix a date as soon as possible, probably before the end of January.