PARIS/TEHRAN, 24 August 2005 — France, Germany and Britain will not hold nuclear talks with Iran at the end of the month as planned because of Tehran’s decision to resume operations at a uranium conversion plant, France’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday. “There will be no negotiations Aug. 31, since the Iranians have decided to suspend application of the Paris Agreement,” ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said. He was referring to a deal signed with the European Union in November under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and related activities until negotiations had finished.
“By common accord among the three Europeans, it is clear that there will be no negotiations as long as the Iranians have not returned to the framework of this Paris accord,” Mattei said. France, Britain and Germany, negotiating on behalf of the 25-member EU, have sought to entice Iran into a commitment not to build atomic arms by offering political and economic incentives.
Mattei said that canceling the Aug. 31 meeting “does not mean that there will not be contacts with the Iranians.” “We have contacts with the Iranians. The three European countries have embassies there,” he said.
Iran’s outgoing top negotiator, Hassan Rohani, said Sunday that Iran was offering to negotiate an agreement with Europe over resuming enrichment at its facility in the central town of Natanz, the state news agency IRNA reported Monday. “We are ready to negotiate with Europe. Iran gives Europe a chance to negotiate and reach an agreement with Iran over resumption of activities in Natanz Uranium Enrichment plant. It would be up to Europe to continue the negotiations,” Rohani said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of members of Iran’s hard-line Basij militia staged a series of demonstrations outside European embassies in Tehran yesterday, chanting angry slogans and vowing to defend the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. “Our nuclear activities are more important than the Iran-Iraq War. We will resist to the last drop of our blood,” Ibrahim Motevalian, the head of the Basij at Tehran university, told demonstrators.
