Europe, U.S. renew push for sanctions on Iran

WASHINGTON – The United States and Europe launched a new push for sanctions against Iran on Wednesday, after the European Union’s envoy reported that four months of nuclear talks have failed to persuade Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment program.

The envoy, Javier Solana, stopped short of declaring his talks dead, but senior U.S. officials said that the effort had failed and that it was time to make good on a threat to punish Iran if it didn’t halt suspected nuclear weapons work.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in the Middle East, said the United States favors “bringing to a close the open-ended negotiations with the Iranians. … It’s become quite evident that that’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday again rejected suspending uranium enrichment.

“You are mistaken if you assume that the Iranian nation will stop for even a moment from the path toward using nuclear energy, due to your nagging,” he was quoted as telling a crowd of supporters in Iran.

Initial sanctions against Iran would include travel restrictions and financial measures against Iranian government officials, along with curbs on trade in technology that could benefit Iran’s nuclear research, U.S. and foreign diplomats have said. U.S. and European officials want to avoid imposing sanctions that would hurt the Iranian people and cause them to direct their anger at the West rather than at their own government.

Still, it remains far from clear whether Russia and China, which have balked at sanctions on Iran, will go along with even carefully targeted sanctions – or whether the measures will persuade Iran to change course. Iran denies that it’s seeking nuclear weapons, but it insists on its right to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear power.

Russia and China haven’t agreed to meet with Rice and her European colleagues this weekend to discuss next steps on Iran, U.S. and European diplomats said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the negotiations’ sensitivity.

While U.S. intelligence agencies don’t expect Iran to master nuclear weapons technology for several years, some Bush administration hawks favor using overt and covert measures to topple Ahmadinejad’s regime.

“If we failed and Rice failed with us” in trying to use diplomacy, the arguments of hard-liners in Washington would be strengthened, said one of the European diplomats.