CNN, VIENNA, Austria — Talks between Iran’s top nuclear negotiator and key European foreign ministers ended Friday without a breakthrough on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, the German Foreign Ministry office said.
Andrea Berdesinski, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said there would be no more talks before Monday’s meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, which is expected to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.
A British official in Vienna told CNN that Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, offered nothing new during the session, and that the European delegation reminded him that Tehran must stop uranium enrichment on its soil and come clean about its program.
The meeting involved Larijani and the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France, the so-called EU3 that has been working to break the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.
Larijani had requested the session after meeting in Moscow with officials about a Russian proposal to enrich uranium for Tehran inside Russia, provided Iran cease enrichment activities inside its own borders.
Ahead of Friday’s meeting with the EU3, Larijani said Tehran strongly opposes any attempt by the IAEA to refer Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
The IAEA’s board of governors is to meet Monday on whether to do just that. In a resolution last month, the IAEA’s board of governors voted to report Iran’s nuclear activities to the council for possible sanctions.
In Washington on Thursday, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States would be closely monitoring Friday’s talks, but he doubted Iran would propose anything new.
"Is Iran going to suspend enrichment activity? Is Iran going to return to the negotiations?" Ereli said. "Or is Iran going to continue, as we think they have, to stall and prevaricate and extend things in a meaningless way in order to avoid censure?"
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but the West, particularly the United States, charges that Tehran’s nuclear power program is simply a front for a nuclear weapons program.
At a news conference during a surprise visit to Afghanistan Wednesday, U.S. President George W. Bush said Iran "must not have a nuclear weapon."
"The most destabilizing thing that can happen is for Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he said. "We will work with friends and allies to convince them not to."