West seeks to test Iran in Geneva as nuclear row escalates

International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna/Geneva  - At talks between Iran and world powers in Geneva on Thursday, Western countries aim to test whether there is any willingness on the part of the Islamic state to return to a dialogue on its controversial nuclear programme.

But diplomats and experts said they did not expect Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili to veer from Tehran's official stance of seeking talks on everything but that issue when he meets top diplomats from the five permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, as well as from Germany.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is also to attend the meeting, formally representing these six countries.

Following Iran's revelation last week that it had started building another uranium enrichment plant without informing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first, the Western countries among these six powers have made it clear they would seek additional sanctions should Tehran not show more transparency and cooperation with the Vienna-based agency.

Russia has signalled it would consider sanctions in principle, while China stresses the need of a diplomatic solution.

These harsh reactions, as well as Iran's subsequent testing of missiles and unspecified threats issued by its parliament this week, showed that the nuclear row runs deeper than the news about the new site near Qom.

Especially the Western countries at the table in Geneva want to address deep suspicions and open questions about Iran's nuclear programme, which they fear could be a front a weapons programme.

"We can talk about other issues ... but it has to be clear it is about the one theme that is worrying the international community," Berlin's Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said on Wednesday about talks that are the first since a similar but inconclusive round in July 2008 in Geneva.

However, leaders in Tehran have made it clear they would neither make any concessions over Iran's right to have a civilian nuclear programme, nor even discuss the nuclear dispute in Geneva.

"If they don't want to talk nuclear, there is no use for these talks," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a scholar at the London security think tank IISS and a former high-ranking US State Department official.

Earlier this month, Iran handed their counterparts a document that was to serve as a broad agenda for future negotiations.

It proposed finding solutions for peace in the Middle East and in all other regions of the world, reform of the United Nations, talks on economic issues and the prevention of the spread of nuclear arms, but it did not touch on the subject most important to Tehran's interlocutors.

"We hope that in Geneva we can discuss several global issues and agree on formation of working groups on each of the issues," Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in New York this week.

What Iran really wants is "security guarantees from the US, as well as an acknowledgement of its status and role in the region," said Rouzbeh Parsi, a researcher at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris.

In June 2008, the UN veto powers and Germany had put forward their own package, offering to improve economic and political relations with Iran, including assistance in the nuclear energy field.

At the same time, the countries offered legally binding guarantees of supplying nuclear fuel for power reactors, in a bid to render Iran's own uranium enrichment activities unnecessary.

After last year's talks, Iran's negotiator Jalili compared the ongoing diplomacy to carpet weaving that "moves ahead in millimetres."

However, Western powers are unlikely to show such patience.

Tehran will have until the end of the year to provide satisfactory replies and to engage in a dialogue regarding its nuclear energy program, French Foreign Bernard Kouchner said this week, summing up the Western position. Meanwhile, sanctions are "not yet the order of the day," he said.

So far, the Security Council has passed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in an unsuccessful effort to push for more cooperation with the IAEA and a halt of uranium enrichment.

The punitive measures targeted officials and government-controlled entities connected with the nuclear programme, as well as a number of Iranian banks.

Russia has been more reluctant to step up pressure on Iran. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev left the door open last week, saying that "in some cases sanctions are inevitable."

China, which is interested in Iran's gas and oil supplies, opposes any tough international measures currently mulled by Washington and other governments that would stop Iran from exporting oil.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been quoted as calling for "crippling sanctions," following the revelation of the second enrichment plant.

Israel regards Iran as its biggest, possibly even existential threat, given Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

The IAEA has urged Iran to let it inspect the new site but it is also trying cast light on past research and development activities that could have been part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons.

While IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei was quoted Wednesday as saying he had no evidence of current weapon-making efforts, British intelligence analysts think that such work is still ongoing, the Financial Times reported. dpa