VIENNA, Austria - A meeting between a senior Iranian envoy and a top official of the International Atomic Energy Agency was abruptly canceled Monday, and diplomats faulted refusal by Iran to make good on a promise to provide answers about its past atomic activities.
The meeting, between Javeed Vaidi of Iran and deputy IAEA director general Olli Heinonen, had been billed as a test of Tehran's readiness to end years of stonewalling and provide answers on aspects of its nuclear program that could be used to develop weapons.
But a diplomat told The Associated Press that the meeting was canceled on short notice because of perceptions that Vaidi would bring "nothing substantial" to the meeting with Heinonen.
This is a breaking news update. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran sought to blunt international pressure over its nuclear defiance on Monday, dispatching a senior envoy for talks with EU and International Atomic Energy Agency officials that will test Tehran's offer to provide answers about past suspicious atomic activities.
The timing and venue of the meetings suggested that Iran was attempting to lessen criticism of its defiance of the U.N. Security Council, which has imposed two sets of sanctions on the Islamic republic for not heeding a demand to freeze its uranium enrichment program.
The talks, in Vienna, Austria, were taking place on the opening day of a meeting in the Austrian capital by the IAEA's 35-nation board. Because a main focus of the gathering is Iran, it will give the United States and other critics of Tehran's nuclear program a platform to pressure Tehran on enrichment and other issues.
Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate to the gathering, set the tone for countries pushing Iran ahead of the start of the board meeting.
"Iran's leaders (are) continuing to develop capabilities to enrich uranium and produce plutonium," in violation of the Security Council, Schulte told reporters. "These capabilities are not necessary to benefit peaceful nuclear technology but are necessary to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons."
He also took Tehran to task for "continuing to withdraw cooperation from the IAEA, causing a troubling deterioration of the agency's knowledge of Iran's nuclear capabilities."
A linked issue - years of Iranian stonewalling about troubling aspects of Tehran's past nuclear activities - was up for discussion in the EU-Iranian-IAEA talks outside the board meeting.
Iranian negotiator Javad Vaedi was meeting first with Robert Cooper, deputy to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. The two were then scheduled to go into talks with Olli Heinonen, an IAEA deputy director general in charge of the agency's Iran investigation.
The talks are a spinoff of May 31 discussions in Madrid between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator.
That meeting ended with Iran offering to divulge information long sought by IAEA experts trying to establish whether the Islamic republic's past nuclear activists were secretly aimed at trying to make weapons.
The offer fell short of the main purpose of the Solana-Larijani talks - finding a way to bridge an impasse over Iran's rejection of U.N. Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.
Still, any decision by Iran to fully cooperate on clearing up past activities would represent a major concession.
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