EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Luxembourg on
Monday that he could not guarantee his forthcoming talks with Iran
would be a success, but he would like to try again to break the
impasse over the country's nuclear program.
Solana will meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani
on Wednesday in Turkey in a bid to persuade Iran to stop uranium
enrichment and return to the negotiating table.
Foreign ministers from all 27 EU members agreed on Monday in
Luxembourg to introduce sanctions against Iran over its nuclear
programs in line with a UN Security Council resolution.
The foreign ministers also agreed on a blacklist of people and
organizations linked to Iran's nuclear industry, based on UN
Security Council sanctions passed in December.
The full list of Iran's persona non grata subject to a travel
ban and assets freeze will be published in the official EU gazette
on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The foreign ministers also agreed in principle to apply a second
UN resolution against Iran, which was passed last month and
introduced fresh sanctions against Tehran if it failed to suspend
its uranium enrichment activities within 60 days.
The latter resolution, whose details EU ministers would outline
at a later date, involved notably restriction on arms sales.
Iran rejected on Sunday Western calls for a suspension of its
sensitive nuclear activities. Iran insists its nuclear drive is
solely for generating energy.
Iran has shown no sign of yielding in the nuclear stand-off,
saying its uranium enrichment has reached an industrial level and
announcing its wishes to install over 50,000 uranium enriching
centrifuges at a plant in Natanz.
The European Union offered Iran a package of economic and
technological incentives in return for its suspension of the
enrichment activities.
(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2007)
