US Spars With Iran Before Iran-EU Nuclear Talks

The United States told Iran on Thursday it must change its nuclear course or be isolated.

The United States told Iran on Thursday it must change its nuclear course or be isolated, but Tehran remained defiant as it held talks on its atomic programme with the European Union.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was time for Iran to abandon uranium enrichment work, but EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana acknowledged before he met Iran's top nuclear negotiator in Madrid it would be hard to clinch a deal.

"It is time for Iran to change its tactics. The international community is united on what Iran should do and this is to suspend (enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel)," Rice said during a visit to Vienna.

Solana's meeting with Iran's Ali Larijani at a former hunting lodge on Madrid's outskirts looked like a last stab at easing a standoff over Iran's atomic activity before world powers sharpen U.N. sanctions.

But no one held out hope for any breakthrough one month after the last inconclusive session between the two men, despite two sets of modest U.N. sanctions against Iran.

"It is true that as time goes by, if the situation continues, probably the agreement will be more complicated," Solana said before the talks. "I will try to ... see if we can pave the way in order to get into formal negotiations."

Major powers insist Iran stop enriching uranium as a confidence-building precondition for negotiations on trade and other benefits.

Larijani on Wednesday ruled out a nuclear halt as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, offering only to assure its programme is not a disguised bid for bombs as the West suspects. Iran says it only wants atomic power to generate electricity.

Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations, meeting in Germany on Wednesday, expressed "deep regret" Iran had kept on expanding enrichment activities and raised the prospect of more painful sanctions.

"If Iran continues to ignore demands of the Security Council, we will support further appropriate measures as agreed in Resolution 1747," the ministers said in a statement.

Security Council resolution 1747 gave Tehran a 60-day deadline to freeze all enrichment, a process of refining uranium for power plants or, if taken to a very high degree, weapons.

Iran ignored the deadline, which expired last week.

RICE RENEWS U.S OFFER

Rice reiterated a U.S. offer made one year ago that if Iran gave up uranium enrichment work, Washington was ready to reverse decades of American policy and talk to Tehran on any issue.

"But that can't be done while Iran continues to pursue and to try and perfect technologies that are going to lead to a nuclear weapon. As I have said before, the question is not why won't we talk to Tehran but why won't Tehran talk to us."

An EU diplomat in Madrid said talks were important largely because the alternative was worse, adding: "The point is to keep the negotiating track open ... There are no signs of movement from the other side at this moment."

China, one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members with power of veto, stressed its preference for further diplomacy over punitive action against a major trade partner.

"Diplomatic effort to resolve the problem in a peaceful way is the best choice," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news conference in Beijing.

Solana is empowered by the five permanent Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany and the EU to explore the scope for formal talks on a package of economic, technological and political initiatives if Iran shelves nuclear fuel production.