Iran wins another day

Yesterday, the eagerly awaited meeting in Brussels between the High Representative of the European Union for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, and the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani, broke down at the last moment. The meeting was canceled at the initiative of the Iranian side. As Teresa Henrichs, a spokeswoman for the EU press service, told Vremya Novostei, the postponement of the visit of the Iranian representative to the Belgian capital, “which became known several hours before the pre-planned event, came as a surprise to Mr. Solana.” According to our interlocutor, Javier Solana and Ali Larijani agreed by telephone that “the meeting will be held in Brussels on Thursday (today - Ed. ), after which discussions will continue on July 11."

It is unclear exactly what explains the refusal of the Iranian representative to come to Brussels. However, there have been suggestions that one of the reasons is that yesterday Mariam Rajavi, one of the leaders of the “Organization of Mujahideen of the Iranian People” banned in Iran (the organization is headed by her brother Masoud Rajavi), was in the Belgian capital. As the Iranian News Agency reported yesterday, Tehran called on the EU to cancel the visits, but did not meet with understanding.

By the way, today marks exactly one month since the EU representative delivered to Tehran the proposals of the “six” (Russia, USA, China, Great Britain, France and Germany) on the Iranian nuclear issue. They provide for the supply of light water reactors, fuel for nuclear power plants, as well as materials and technologies for the aviation and other industrial sectors to the country, but only if Iran suspends its own uranium enrichment. In the future, the resumption of this process is not excluded, but under strict control of the IAEA.

Without rejecting the proposals of the Six, but also without showing any readiness to stop enrichment, the Iranian leadership is seeking to extend the time for reflection. On June 21, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised that his country would respond “by the end of the month of Mordad,” which ends on August 22 according to the Persian calendar. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki explained such a long delay by the need to “carefully study” the proposals.

World powers clearly do not intend to spend the summer waiting for news from Tehran. The G8 foreign ministers, who met exactly a week ago in Moscow, called on Iran to give a “clear and substantive response” to the G6 proposals just at the meeting of Javier Solana and Ali Larijani, so that before the start of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg (15 --July 17) the international community was able to make another move.

Petr ISKENDEROV