End of EU-Iran Diplomacy

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned that there is little prospect of successful talks with Iran on its nuclear program, but stressed in an interview broadcast Saturday that an incentives package aimed at defusing the issue remained on the table.

"We do not at the moment have a situation in which negotiations can be held with prospects of success, so the (U.N.) Security Council must take up its efforts" to work toward possible sanctions, Steinmeier said on Inforadio. "But we have made equally clear that our offer for cooperation with Iran remains on the table. That means we are ready to return to the negotiating table any time if Iran declares its readiness to accept the conditions for negotiations," he said.

Steinmeier Friday said the path was clear for the UN Security Council to intervene in the standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

The German foreign minister's comments come a day after the EU released a draft announcement that talks with Iran over its nuclear program had failed and that the bloc's negotiating team was going to leave it up to the UN Security Council to consider punitive action, official sources said Friday.

EU sees itself left with no choice

The news of an official breakdown of talks would be confirmed early next week at a European foreign ministers meeting next Tuesday. The draft announcement said that the EU nations now believed that "Iran's continuation of enrichment-related activities has left the EU no choice," but to throw the issue back to the UN.

The ministers' conclusions on Iran, drawn up by the European Union's 25 member nations, expressed "deep concern" that Iran has not yet suspended its enrichment-related and reprocessing activities as required by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog and a Security Council resolution.

The French foreign ministry said Friday a "broad agreement" existed between the six world powers engaged in the Iran issue, the Security Council five plus Germany, about UN measures over Iran's nuclear program.

"This means that there is no argument against letting the Security Council deal with the matter," a spokesman for the ministry told reporters in Paris. "It's clear that we are now going to work in New York (UN) very soon," said ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei.

However the door to talks remains open, he added. "To double-lock the door to negotiations is not our vision of things."

Ministers meeting in Luxembourg will signal end

A European diplomat went further, saying that the EU foreign ministers will formally end negotiations with Tehran over Iran's nuclear ambitions at their talks in Luxembourg.

The ministers are due to declare that "negotiations with Iran have terminated because of a lack of results," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. However, the draft of the meeting's conclusions dating from October 11 does not include that sentence.

Senior diplomats from the six -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- discussed the sanctions during a videoconference Wednesday morning, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"I think there is broad agreement on the potential sanctions that would be included, but not yet agreement on the specific items that would be in a resolution, that has to be worked out," he said.

Threat of sanctions increases

The six have been debating for weeks over the kinds of sanctions to slap on Iran for ignoring an August 31 UN deadline to suspend a uranium enrichment program that Washington and others fear will be subverted to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Under UN Security Council Article 41, members may "decide what measures, not involving the use of armed force, are to be employed to give effect to its decisions."

These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

But China and Russia, which both wield veto power on the Security Council, have balked at imposing the kind of punitive measures sought by Washington, with the backing of Britain.