One Step Closer

Iran has suddenly announced that talks with the EU over the Iranian nuclear program have been "postponed". The talks were regarded as the last ditch effort to head off sanctions. The announcement was, of course, a surprise to the EU negotiators, but they struggled to put the best face on it.

VIENNA, Austria - A senior Iranian envoy abruptly announced Wednesday that last-ditch talks on his country's disputed nuclear program were postponed, moving Tehran a step closer to U.N. sanctions after it defied a deadline to freeze uranium enrichment.

The talks had been tentatively set for Wednesday in Vienna as a final attempt to see if there was common ground to start negotiations between Iran and the six nations that have been trying to persuade Iran to limit its nuclear program.

But while the European Union's Javier Solana had been ready to fly to the Austrian capital at short notice, the talks had been left hanging by uncertainty over whether Iranian nuclear envoy Ali Larijani would come.

"We will not have the meeting today in Vienna," Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press. "Both sides are arranging (a meeting) for a couple of days later."

There was no immediate comment from Solana's office in Brussels. But although Soltanieh said the decision to postpone any meeting had been mutual, it appeared that Iranian reluctance to attend had scuttled the chance of Wednesday talks.

We are running out of time to stop this from escalating.