Britain, France and Germany are still hoping to convince mullahs to limit work on the nuclear fuel cycle as an "objective guarantee" the process will not be diverted to make weapons. Their offer of trade and other incentives has already been rejected.
"We have sent a message to the Westerners that we will resist to the end in order to master civil nuclear technology and will not give up our rights," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mullahs’ president said this week.
Reflecting the sentiment among many Iranian officials that they are in a position of strength — given that oil prices are high and the US is bogged down in Iraq – Ahmadinejad boasted that "they have seen our firmness and have backed down."
The International Atomic Energy Agency in September found Iran regime in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, paving the way for a Security Council referral if Iran does not halt nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with an IAEA investigation.
The message from Tehran seems to be perfectly clear: nuclear power is a matter of rights, pride, security and regime survival, and any compromise is out of the question — regardless of the consequences.
"In my view the suspensions accepted by Iran were unreasonable. The suspension of enrichment was enough to build confidence, but the halt in making (centrifuge) parts and conducting research was not justifiable," Ali Larijani, mullahs’ nuclear negotiator, was quoted as saying.
"The Westerners will have to get used to our new attitude," he said, before adding — in a comment that one EU diplomat described as particularly worrying — that "if Iran goes nuclear, nobody will be able to challenge it because the stakes would be too high."
Although EU diplomats close to the talks insist they are engaged in a long-haul process, they admit that at present their two-year-old effort remains entirely deadlocked.
"The Iranians are digging in. Everytime we speak to an official, we hear the same thing: ‘What can you do to force us to give up nuclear technology?’," said one European diplomat.
"We want to give the Russian proposal a chance, but let’s just say a Security Council referral is still on the cards."
In the meantime Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister, said today that Israel could not accept the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran.