WASHINGTON, 11 March 2006 — The United States rejected a Russian proposal yesterday for international crisis talks ahead of any UN Security Council action to resolve the Iranian nuclear impasse. “The next talks are going to be at the Security Council early next week,” US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters when asked about Moscow’s call for crisis talks with China, the European Union and United States to reach a consensus on managing the standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions without taking action at the council.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said that although the situation was critical, “this does not mean that now we must now all go to the Security Council and start demanding, threatening and carrying out threats.” “This just means that now everyone must get together and collectively sort out a new consensus on what our strategy will be at the current time,” Lavrov said, adding that Russia, leading EU countries, and China were ready for such a meeting. “I am sure that the US will also take part.”

But Burns said Iran had defied a deal between the United States, Russia and several others in the international community that gave Tehran a 30-day grace period for diplomacy before the world body decides what measures, if any, to take. “So early next we begin discussions in the Security Council,” he said, adding that “it will shine a very bright spotlight on Iran. “We will ask Iran to suspend its nuclear program and return to negotiations and should Iran not do that, the Security Council, we believe, should take a series of graduated steps designed to increase the pressure on the Iranian regime,” Burns said.

The European Union, however, voiced hope yesterday that diplomatic efforts can yet defuse the escalating crisis, while refusing to rule out UN sanctions if Tehran refuses to back down. The 25-nation bloc’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana issued the warning as EU foreign ministers gathered in Salzburg, Austria, for talks. “I don’t rule out sanctions, it depends on what kind of sanctions,” he told the Austrian daily Der Standard.

But reflecting the intense sensitivity of the crisis Solana later tempered his comments. “I don’t talk about sanctions,” he told reporters on arrival at the talks. Hopes for diplomacy were also underlined by Britain’s Jack Straw, a member of the so-called EU-3 — along with his French and German counterparts — who have spearheaded Europe’s diplomatic drive with Tehran.

“The purpose of sending the matter to the Security Council is in order to reinforce the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.

In Tehran, a prayer leader yesterday denounced the European Union as a US puppet. Ahmad Khatami, leading Friday prayers in Tehran, said recourse to the council after 2-1/2 years of EU-Iran talks on the nuclear dispute proved European subservience to Washington.

“The issue showed that the EU, despite its gesture of independence, is intimidated,” he said in a sermon broadcast live on state radio. “It is a puppet of US policies.”