World powers failed to make progress with Iran in two days of talks on its nuclear programme, with the EU calling the discussions disappointing and saying no further meetings between the two sides were planned. "This is not the conclusion I'd hoped for," said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at the end of the talks in Istanbul on Saturday.
"We'd hoped to embark on a discussion of practical ways forward and have made every effort to make that happen," she added. "I am disappointed." A senior US official who attended the talks and declined to be named also described the meeting as disappointing and said "serious differences remained" between the two sides. An aide to Iran's chief negotiator Saeed Jalili told Reuters that the talks would resume, even if the timing and venue were still undecided. However, Ashton said further talks depended on a more constructive approach from Tehran.
"The process can go forward if Iran chooses to respond positively," she said. "The door remains open. The choice remains in Iran's hands." The West suspects Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons while Tehran says its atomic energy programme is peaceful.
The stand-off has dragged on for eight years and expectations were low heading into the Istanbul talks between Iran and the six powers - the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain - whose delegations were led by Ashton.
The talks were a follow-up to a meeting in Geneva last month which was the first set of discussions between the two sides in more than a year. Their failure suggests that tougher sanctions against Iran, a major oil producer, have had little effect in persuading the Islamic state to cooperate more, though analysts say punitive measures are hurting the Iranian economy.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US network ABC that the Obama administration may propose new unilateral steps against Iran. Asked about the possibility of more sanctions, Ashton said it had not been part of the discussions in Istanbul, but pointed to the West's "twin track" approach of applying pressure to keep the dialogue moving.
At the outset of the Istanbul meeting Iran insisted on preconditions that were unacceptable to the West, including the lifting of sanctions and recognition of its right to enrich uranium. Jalili said after the talks ended that any agreement would have to be based on Iran's right to pursue enrichment.
"Any kind of talks and co-operation, as I underlined during the talks with Mrs Ashton, should be based on respecting the nations' rights... including Iran's right to nuclear technology," he said. "Having nuclear fuel cycle and uranium enrichment are Iran's rights and should be respected by P5 + 1," Jalili told a news conference, referring to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.
Iran has ignored UN Security Council resolutions demanding it suspend enrichment, with trade and other benefits offered in return, and refused to grant unfettered access for UN nuclear inspectors. Uranium enriched to a low degree yields fuel for electricity or, if refined to a high level, the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.
Iran's nuclear stand-off with the West has escalated in the past year, with the United Nations imposing new sanctions and Western states rejecting a revised proposal for Iran to swap some of its fuel abroad as too little, too late. Ashton had outlined a possible revised offer for a nuclear fuel swap that would entail Iran handing over a large chunk of its stockpile of low enriched uranium in return for highly processed fuel to keep a Tehran reactor that makes medical isotopes running.
The powers want to prevent Tehran from accumulating enough material for a nuclear weapon while negotiations proceed on a broader solution to the crisis. The idea was tentatively agreed in October 2009 only for Iran to back out some weeks later. Consequently, the powers would want Iran to exchange a far larger amount than the 1,200 kg of LEU agreed in 2009. "What we wanted to do was to leave behind in Iran roughly what had been left behind when we made the original proposal - that is to say a level some way short of what you need to make a weapon," a western diplomat said.