Guardian Utd (August 3): EU warns Iran: no talks if nuclear freeze ends

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Wednesday August 3

EU warns Iran: no talks if nuclear freeze ends
Issue will be taken to UN security council, Tehran told
By Ian Traynor

The EU warned Iran yesterday that it would end two years of negotiations over nuclear projects if Tehran fulfils threats to end its freeze on the enrichment of uranium.

Amid a mood of mounting emergency and showdown between the west and the incoming regime of President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, new US intelligence sounded a less alarmist note about the potential crisis, despite sabre-rattling from the Bush administration and Israel.

A US intelligence estimate on Iran, ordered last January, concluded that it could be 10 years before Tehran had sufficient material to arm a nuclear warhead, the Washington Post reported.

On Monday Iran notified the UN's nuclear inspectorate that it was removing the UN seals on equipment for converting raw uranium into gaseous form for enrichment, ending a freeze agreed with the EU last November. The move came days before the EU is to table detailed incentives to Iran in an attempt to persuade it to scrap uranium enrichment.

Read more.