The European Union said it was disappointed by talks with Iran today on an offer of incentives to halt uranium enrichment and rejected Iranian assertions it had failed to clear up questions on the package.
'The meeting was disappointing,' Cristina Gallach, spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, said after his talks with chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.
'All the questions were answered. If there were no more answers, it was because there were no more questions,' she said.
She added that Solana was not satisfied with the talks but the EU remained committed to a negotiated settlement of the row over Iran's nuclear programme.
Iran rejects Western suspicions that the programme is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb.
A senior Iranian nuclear official said after the four hours of talks in Brussels that one problem with the international offer of technology, trade and political incentives was that they contained no legal guarantees.
An EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said the offer presented to Iran on 6 June contained proposals that any agreement would be deposited with Vienna-based UN atomic energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and be endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.
Following the failure of Iran and the EU to reach a deal, the United States said major powers had previously agreed to deal with Tehran at the UN if it failed to reply.
The comment by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reiterated a weeks-old US position, but pressured America's partners to hold to their agreement on the eve of a meeting of major powers' foreign ministers to discuss Iran.
