EU sees "new ambition" by Iran for nuclear talks
By Mark John and Darren Ennis BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU leaders said on Monday Iran was showing "new ambition" to negotiate an end to a nuclear row with the West and the door was open for new talks, but they also agreed to implement U.N. sanctions to keep pressure on Tehran. Officials said the sanctions would strictly echo a U.N. resolution aimed at making Iran suspend efforts to make nuclear fuel, which Tehran says is meant only to generate electricity but the West suspects is a disguised quest for atomic bombs.
Diplomats said the EU measures would include travel bans on Iranian nuclear officials, a call on states to prevent Iranian nationals from studying sensitive technologies on their soil, while leaving open the possibility of further action. 
However European countries, some enjoying major trade relations with Iran, continue to resist American appeals for them to join a U.S.-led financial embargo against Tehran.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who restored tentative contacts with Iran at a security conference in Munich on Sunday, said new opportunities had arisen for talks with Tehran.
"We both have the impression that in Iran there is a new ambition to return to the negotiating table," Steinmeier said, referring to meetings he and Solana conducted with Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani at the weekend.
"In the course of the next few days, we will have to sound out whether they (Iran) can pursue that line," Steinmeier told a Brussels news conference.
"The possibilities are not immense," Solana cautioned, saying no concrete proposals for a deal were aired in Munich.
The core of the dispute is Iran's refusal of a U.N. demand that it suspend enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel to create trust for talks. Tehran says to do so would be giving up its main bargaining chip before negotiations began.
Diplomats at the Munich meeting said a few European nations were toying with the idea of letting Iran run a few hundred nuclear centrifuges for research but without feeding uranium into them to generate fuel. Meanwhile, trade incentives offered by the West last year to stop enrichment would be negotiated.
MAJOR OBJECTIONS
But while Iran might be amenable, diplomats said, the United States, Britain and France objected out of concern Tehran would gain nuclear skills merely by vacuum-testing centrifuges, which can yield fuel for power plants or bombs.
"An Iranian commitment simply to not introduce material into centrifuges as they kept spinning would not meet the demands of the U.N. Security Council in any way," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference.
"The door remains open to Iran to come to negotiations if indeed they are prepared to act as the international community has sought," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged on Sunday to pursue Iran's nuclear agenda but also said Tehran was ready for new talks, put on hold last year as Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear programme in defiance of international calls.
But some analysts say Iran may be more ready for a deal now after moderates, accusing Ahmadinejad of a confrontational course that provoked sanctions and could isolate Iran abroad, battered Ahmadinejad's hardline allies in elections.
"Iran considers that all the issues, within the framework of negotiations, can be presented and examined, even suspension," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said on Monday.
"If (any proposal) assures or guarantees Iran's right to use nuclear energy, it can be considered," he said.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei wants Iran and the West to adopt a face-saving "timeout", with simultaneous suspensions of enrichment and sanctions steps, to revive talks and avert a spiral towards a feared U.S.-Iran war.
"I see no reason why both Iran and the international community cannot agree to a simultaneous (formula). Let's at least try to see if in 3 or 4 months time we can find (the basis of agreement)," ElBaradei said in Brussels on Monday.
"What I hear from Iran is that they are very much interested in negotiations on a comprehensive solution. I have no doubt that this is their aim," he said after talks with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.
"(To bomb Iran) would be counterproductive, since it would create the opposite reaction of Iranians coming together to make the development of nuclear weapons a national priority."
The U.N. sanctions ban transfers of sensitive nuclear materials to Iran, freeze financial assets of those linked with the nuclear project and ask countries to pass on information for those on the list about when they travel abroad and where.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran, David Brunnstrom and Mark Heinrich in Brussels)
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