Pat Dollard

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Telegraph:

Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and western governments will be the last chance to come to a settlement over the programme, diplomats said yesterday. If not, western governments would seek tough new sanctions at the United Nations.

“The ball is in the Iranians’ court,” said one source. “What they do in Geneva will be a fundamental test for the Iranians.”

The meeting is the first of its kind for more than a year and the first with Iran at which Washington will be a full partner for three decades. It follows last week’s revelation that the Iranians were developing a secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom.

That disclosure may have rattled the Iranian government, but its president was in bellicose mood yesterday in setting out his terms for the meeting.

He said it was the West, not Iran, which had the opportunity to show it had changed its attitudes.

“The leaders of these countries made a historic mistake with their comments about the new plant,” he said. “The negotiators can definitely adopt any policy that they want, but we will not be harmed.”

The West’s negotiating team, led by the European Union’s foreign policy representative Javier Solana, is hoping that the hardline bluster is preparing the way politically for a more conciliatory approach face-to-face.

They say do not know whether Iran wants to cut a deal or not.

“The key thing is, by the second half of the day, is there any sense of whether they are in a frame of mind where they want to engage?” the source said. “We are offering a process of co-operation with Iran – on economic issues, energy, even things like education.”

Close attention will be paid to the reaction from Russia and China, which have the power to veto any proposed sanctions.

Russia reacted critically to the disclosure of Iran’s latest secret programme, but China has shown no willingness to shift from its previous opposition to more sanctions.

The West’s general stance received some backing from Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The West claims that the secret construction of the new facility was in violation of Iran’s commitments, but Tehran says it was not obliged to inform the IAEA until six months before it introduced nuclear material.

But Mr ElBaradei told a television interviewer: “They have been on the wrong side of the law in so far as informing the agency about the construction.

“Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that.”

If no deal can be reached, sanctions being discussed include restrictions on financial services – particularly the financing and insuring of the oil trade – and imports of refined oil products such as petrol.

The two sides are likely to spar even over terms of the negotiations, with the Iranians expected to argue hard over whether the nuclear issue should be discussed at all.

The Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, is seen as a regime loyalist, and is notorious for beginning such meetings by giving lengthy speeches about Iran’s sacrifices during the Iran-Iraq war. Topics raised in advance by the Iranians focus on renegotiating the geopolitical world order.