U.S. seeks Iran sanctions now, EU stress talks first (Reuters)

[allemand]

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday Iran was "aggressively" pursuing atom bombs and should face sanctions now, but EU allies stressed it was not too late for talks on a negotiated solution to its disputed nuclear work.

The Western partners in a big power group of six dealing with Iran appeared to differ over the urgency for sanctions in statements to the U.N. nuclear watchdog's board of governors on the eve of crunch talks between Iran and the European Union.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana was likely to try to pin down Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani on what EU diplomats said was a tentative offer from him to consider temporarily halting enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel and a British minister suggested sanctions would not work.

The United States, Iran's arch-adversary and spearheading efforts to draw up punitive U.N. sanctions against Tehran over suspicions it is secretly trying to build atom bombs, has said it has no knowledge of any such offer.

http://in.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-13T223713Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-267337-6.xml