Solana says Iran talks likely to be held in Turkey

October 1 talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, with Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program center stage, may be scheduled for Turkey, the European Union’s top diplomat said. “It has not yet been decided, but (the talks will) very likely take place in Turkey,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. Turkey has emerged as a major mediator in the Middle East, hosting key talks between Israel and Syria in the last year. The meeting between Iran and the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany (commonly referred to as the “5+1” or “3+3”) will focus on Iran’s controversial nuclear program. It will provide a first opportunity for direct talks between the administration of Barack Obama and the Iranian government since the US president offered to talk to Tehran upon assuming office in January. Speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Solana said that the European bloc would continue in its “double-track” approach of dialogue and the threat of sanctions with Iran.
 “It is not the first time that we meet, we know each other well,” Solana said. However, this time “the Americans will be formally present. This is new, and I think it should be evaluated positively by the Iranians.” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the bloc would not discuss the possibility of imposing sanctions for the time being. “The focus now is on the October 1 meeting,” Bildt said, adding however that he did not expect any solutions to come out of those talks. Israel and the US said it believes Iran is building a nuclear bomb and the tension has been ratcheting up between the countries, with the EU in the middle trying to mediate a solution. Israel wants condemnation of the Iranian program but instead found itself censured when an Arab resolution expressing concern about Israel’s nuclear weapons was narrowly passed at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a vote exposing a rift between developing and industrialized countries. It was the first time that the IAEA general conference has adopted such a decision since 1991.
Iran’s Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said the successful vote was “a triumph, a glorious moment.” The text, sponsored by Arab countries, was adopted with the votes of 49 mostly developing states, against the opposition of 45 countries including European Union members and the United States. Of the permanent UN Security Council members, China and Russia backed the document that “expresses concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities.”
It also called on Israel to accede to the Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to put its entire nuclear program under IAEA inspections, steps that would effectively force the country to give up its atomic weapons. Israel’s delegate David Danieli said his country would not cooperate with this resolution. “Singling out the state of Israel is counterproductive to confidence-building and peace in the region,” the Israeli nuclear energy official said. Danieli reiterated Israel’s stance that a peace settlement in the Middle East should come before regional disarmament efforts.
The adoption of the resolution was “hypocrisy,” the official said, because it was backed by Iran and Syria, who are under investigation by the IAEA. Israel’s government is believed to have atomic weapons, but it neither confirms nor denies its military nuclear capacity as a matter of policy. Israel is the only country in the region that is not a signatory to the NPT and therefore accepts only limited IAEA inspections.
“The international community and the majority of (IAEA) member states cannot tolerate the status quo anymore,” Soltanieh said. Western countries had opposed the document, arguing that after a resolution calling for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction was adopted, there was no need for a separate one on Israel.
The anxiety has gotten higher because of what critics called the antics of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who again denied the Holocaust that killed six million Jews in World War II happened, this time calling it a “fairy tale.”
That led Britain to condemn his remarks as “ignorant and abhorrent.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was important that the world community should stand up against “this tide of abuse.” In London, he said, “This outburst is not worthy of the leader of Iran,” adding that, “Iran’s people have a great history and culture. I cannot believe that the vast majority of them want to rewrite this chapter of history rather than focus on the future,” he said.