Russia, Iran fail to break impasse
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-02 09:28

Iran and Russia failed to agree on a compromise to break the deadlock over Tehran's nuclear program on Wednesday, as the Islamic Republic's president sought support in Muslim Malaysia.

Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani arrives at a Moscow hotel for negotiations, March 1, 2006. [Reuters]

Iranian officials, headed by top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, held a third round of talks on Moscow's proposal to carry out uranium enrichment for Iran on Russian soil.

"We need to refine ... a few elements of this question and study it. This requires time," Larijani told reporters through a translator after the talks ended late in the evening.

But he stuck to Tehran's line that even if a deal is struck with the Russians Iran will not bow to the key demand from its critics -- to drop all efforts to enrich uranium at home.

"I want to say that the process of enrichment is a sovereign right of any state," he said.

Sergei Kislyak, a Russian deputy foreign minister, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that "not a few questions remain unresolved."

Time is running out for a breakthrough before March 6, when the United Nation's nuclear watchdog is to issue a report on Iran's nuclear activities, which Tehran says are peaceful but others say are in pursuit of an atomic weapon.

The United States and the European Union trio of Britain, France and Germany -- the countries pressing Iran hardest on the issue -- say that any deal with Russia would be worth little unless it stopped Iran's own enrichment program.

The Iranian delegation is to leave Moscow on Thursday, Russian news agencies said. But Larijani implied there would be more talks before their departure.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Malaysia for a trip that appeared to be part of a campaign to win support for his nuclear stance as the crunch March 6 meeting draws nearer.

An Iranian diplomat said Ahmadinejad, who stopped off in Kuwait en route, would brief Malaysian leaders on "Iran's peaceful nuclear technology achievements and the purpose of its activities."

SUSPICIONS

There is less than a week until the International Atomic Energy Agency meets and its board discusses its latest report into Iran's nuclear program.

The watchdog's report, which says it still cannot confirm there is no covert atomic activity in Iran, will then be forwarded to the United Nations Security Council.

Oil prices rose on Wednesday, partly on traders' concerns the nuclear row could affect Iranian crude supplies.

The thinking behind Moscow's proposal is that Russia would enrich Iranian uranium to the level Iran says it needs to fuel power stations, but not to the higher grade needed for weapons.

Moscow, Washington and the EU 3 have said Iran returning to a moratorium on enrichment is a non-negotiable pre-condition of any deal, but Larijani said before Wednesday's talks started that such a step was not on the agenda.

"A moratorium is necessary if there is something dangerous, but all our activity is transparent and directed toward peaceful nuclear power," he told reporters.

U.S. President George W. Bush, on a brief visit to Iran's neighbor Afghanistan, said he backed Russia's efforts to find a compromise deal with Tehran.

"Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. The most destabilizing thing that can happen in this region and in the world is for Iran to have a, develop a nuclear weapon," Bush said.

"And so we've joined with Russia as part of a diplomatic effort to solve this problem."

Moscow sees the enrichment joint venture as a way out of confrontation, but diplomats in Europe and the United States say Tehran is just playing for time.