U.N. diplomats say uranium enrichment negotiations with Iran appear to have failed

~ U.S. ambassador says sanctions are likely unless Iran complies.

NEW YORK -- Iran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment has sabotaged talks meant to defuse the standoff over its nuclear program, opening the way for the U.N. Security Council to start considering sanctions next week, senior U.N. diplomats said Tuesday.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity, citing agreement not to publicly pronounce the talks dead before a final attempt by European Union envoy Javier Solana and Ali Larijani, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, to bridge differences in a phone call scheduled for today.

But with both sides standing firm, "the talks are considered a failure," even in key European capitals that had favored negotiations over U.N. sanctions, said one of the diplomats, adding the Larijani-Solana phone call could focus on nothing more than how to publicly acknowledge that the discussions had failed.

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: "It's only a very short time before we'll be seeking sanctions," unless Iran complies with international demands to suspend enrichment. And, he added, "there is not a single sign that they're prepared to give up" the activity, which can be used to make fissile material to arm nuclear warheads.

Beginning Sept. 9, the EU-Iran talks had been billed as a final attempt to head off a confrontation between Tehran and the Security Council, after Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend enrichment or face punishment. Two diplomats familiar with several rounds of negotiations between EU envoy and Larijani said that the prospect of an up to three-month enrichment freeze was floated, and both men until recently spoke of progress in resolving the impasse.

But on Tuesday, another diplomat said Larijani -- considered a moderate -- told Solana he had been unable to sell the concept of even a limited enrichment freeze to the more hard-line leadership in Tehran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had said as much during the weekend, telling professors at Tehran University that Iran would not suspend enrichment for a single day.

Wednesday's planned Larijani-Solana phone call is to be followed by a meeting Friday in London by the foreign ministers of the five Security Council nations and Germany or their senior representatives.

Those countries spearheaded the latest effort to persuade Tehran to renounce enrichment by offering it a package of economic and political rewards if it cooperated -- and dangling the prospect of punitive action by the Security Council if it did not.

Then, the Security Council could meet as early as Monday to start work on a resolution imposing the first of a series of sanctions meant to make Iran turn course. One of the diplomats said Western council members -- the United States, Britain and France -- favor an embargo on sales of nuclear or missile technology to Tehran as a first step, to be followed by others, including travel bans on Iranian officials and the freezing of their assets.

While relatively mild, such punishments are meant to maintain council unity in the face of opposition to any sanctions from Russia and China, the other two permanent Security Council members.

The diplomats offered conflicting opinions on how Russia would respond, but both agreed China remained skeptical about using such punishment to rein in Iran.

Moscow and Beijing are Tehran's economic partners and have been traditionally opposed to sanctions, fearing they could ultimately lead to the council's most potent weapon -- the threat of military action.

In refusing to give up enrichment, the oil-rich nation says it has a right to nuclear technology as an alternate means of generating power. But Bolton on Tuesday dismissed that argument.

"They've been throwing sand into the eyes of the people concerned about their weapons program for three years now" -- he said, alluding to the more than three-year investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency into suspicious nuclear activities. While the agency says it has found no direct proof that Iran has a secret weapons program, its worrying findings -- including revelations of secret plutonium experiments by Tehran and its possession of a diagram showing how to mold weapons-grade uranium into the shape of nuclear warheads, has increased suspicions.

In an attempt to ease the pressure, a top Iranian official on Tuesday revived a proposal of foreign oversight on its enrichment activities. Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, suggested that France create a consortium to enrich uranium in Iran.

Georges Le Guelte, a nuclear expert at France's Institute for International and Strategic Research, called Saeedi's announcement "a diversion tactic."

He said the international community was unlikely to agree to such a deal because the enrichment would take place in Iran.

"This is something that would be almost as dangerous as leaving the Iranians to do it alone," he said.

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Associated Press Writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.