EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Luxembourg on Monday that he could not guarantee his forthcoming talks with Iran would be a success, but he would like to try again to break the impasse over the country's nuclear program.
Solana will meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Wednesday in Turkey in a bid to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment and return to the negotiating table.
Foreign ministers from all 27 EU members agreed on Monday in Luxembourg to introduce sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programs in line with a UN Security Council resolution.
The foreign ministers also agreed on a blacklist of people and organizations linked to Iran's nuclear industry, based on UN Security Council sanctions passed in December.
The full list of Iran's persona non grata subject to a travel ban and assets freeze will be published in the official EU gazette on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The foreign ministers also agreed in principle to apply a second UN resolution against Iran, which was passed last month and introduced fresh sanctions against Tehran if it failed to suspend its uranium enrichment activities within 60 days.
The latter resolution, whose details EU ministers would outline at a later date, involved notably restriction on arms sales.
Iran rejected on Sunday Western calls for a suspension of its sensitive nuclear activities. Iran insists its nuclear drive is solely for generating energy.
Iran has shown no sign of yielding in the nuclear stand-off, saying its uranium enrichment has reached an industrial level and announcing its wishes to install over 50,000 uranium enriching centrifuges at a plant in Natanz.
The European Union offered Iran a package of economic and technological incentives in return for its suspension of the enrichment activities.
(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2007)
