EU, Iran Hold Talks, Agree to Meet Again in January

Iranian and European Union officials agreed following a brief meeting today in Vienna to hold a new round of nuclear negotiations in January, Reuters reported (see GSN, Dec. 20).

“We agreed to continue our talks in January. Regarding the location, we have agreed on Vienna,” said Javad Vaidi, head of the Iranian delegation (Reuters, Dec. 21).

Officials from the British, French and German foreign ministries met with Vaidi at the French Embassy in Vienna, marking the first formal contact between the two sides since August, Agence France-Presse reported.

Prior to the start of the meeting, a diplomat from one of the European powers told AFP that the chances of persuading Iran to give up its most sensitive nuclear work were “not very bright.”

Due to the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since the last full round of talks in April, Iran is represented by a new slate of negotiators.

“There is a complete new set of people on the Iranian side, so it’s going to be interesting, and a little bit unpredictable,” the diplomat said.

The official said the European Union was prepared to accept some fuel-cycle work by Tehran but would continue to oppose uranium enrichment.

Officials in Tehran, meanwhile, announced today that they would not halt uranium conversion and that they expected to resume enrichment soon on Iranian soil.

“From Iran’s point of view the subject of the talks is to remove the suspension of the uranium processing facilities and this must happen within a clear timetable,” said Supreme National Security Council spokesman Hossein Entezami (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 21).

Elsewhere, an Iranian exile group claimed yesterday that two Russian scientists have assisted Tehran in preparing a network of secret underground nuclear facilities, the Associated Press reported.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran cited sources within the Iranian regime as saying that the facilities contain nuclear equipment, research sites and nuclear and missile command-and-control centers.

“The Iranian resistance has now received information about 14 locations where these tunnels and underground facilities have been built near Tehran, Isfahan, Qom and some other cities,” said Hossein Abedini, a member of the group’s foreign affairs committee.

Abedini said the Iranian Tunneling Association, founded by Ahmadinejad in 1998, “has played a vital role to cover up the regime’s nuclear- and missile-related tunnel construction project.”

He identified the two Russian scientists as “Andrei Kridiko” and “Lakht,” according to AP (Thomas Wagner, Associated Press/Moscow Times, Dec. 20).

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