Military action against Iran over its nuclear ambitions is not on the agenda of the United States or Europe, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Wednesday.
Straw urged Tehran to cooperate with the West to resolve a stand off over its nuclear programme and said the European Union was ready to widen co-operation with Iran if it convinced the world it had no intention of building a bomb.
"There is no question of us going to war in Iran. Why? Because it's not going to resolve the issue," Straw said. "No one is talking about going to war against Iran. It's not on the agenda of the United States," he told Sky News from his Labour Party's annual conference in Brighton.
Washington, which accuses Iran of planning to build nuclear weapons, has said all options are on the table against Tehran but it has no immediate plans to use force. Iran insists it only wants to produce fuel for nuclear power stations.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution on Saturday requiring that Tehran be reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after Iran failed to convince the world its atomic ambitions were entirely peaceful.
Straw told Labour Party members the IAEA decision had sent a strong signal to Iran that it must respect its commitments.
Angered by the IAEA resolution, Tehran has already threatened to resume uranium enrichment - a process that can be a step towards making bomb-grade material - and curtail short-notice UN inspections.
Despite the IAEA's resolution, Straw said the door was still open for diplomacy with Iran.
"If Iran does come into compliance, the door will be thrown wide open to co-operation - economic, political and social - between another great people and the European Union," he said in a speech to his party. Britain, France and Germany had been negotiating with Iran but talks collapsed in August after Tehran rejected a package of political and economic incentives aimed at convincing it to scrap enrichment and other activities that could make bombs.