[A-List] Europe/US rivalry: Iran

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

The recent activities of Javier Solana and Chris Patten, the EU's dual
foreign policy team, are interesting with regard to the developing
breach between the EU and the US re foreign and security policy. More on
this to follow...


EU in talks with Iranian president

Ian Black in Brussels
Wednesday March 13, 2002
The Guardian

Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, meets President Mohammad
Khatami of Iran today in a move which highlights divergences with the US
over George Bush's "axis of evil" policy.

Mr Solana said he hoped dialogue would encourage reformers in Tehran.
"We want to get constructively engaged with Iran," he said in Vienna.

The talks are expected to cover the situation in the Middle East, where
Iranian radicals have backed hardline Palestinian groups.

Hopes were high for improved ties with Iran after September 11, when a
high-level EU mission visited Tehran. But the mood has soured since Mr
Bush named Iran, Iraq and North Korea as forming an "axis of evil arming
to threaten the peace of the world".

The European Commission is preparing a trade and cooperation agreement
with Iran, but a negotiating mandate has yet to be approved by the 15
member states. Officials say the issue has to be treated with caution
for fear of upsetting the US.

Mr Solana described relations with Iran as "constructive but critical",
and stressed that Europe was encouraging Tehran to improve its human
rights record. "We are much more engaged with the Iranian leaders than
the United States, but it is a question of the level of engagement, not
a fundamental contradiction."

Iraq is a far more difficult issue for the EU because of Saddam
Hussein's longstanding failure to comply with UN disarmament
resolutions.

"No one believes that Saddam is producing candies in his caves," Chris
Patten, the external affairs commissioner, tells the Spanish newspapers
El Pais today. "Baghdad must understand that it has to allow the arms
inspectors to return to work."

The EU has engaged with the other "rogue" regime targeted by the US.
After the commission published a paper on its policy towards North Korea
last week, the country's trade minister visited Brussels.

"The US may have changed its foreign policy but we have not," an EU
official said last night. "We believe in tough engagement."

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,666241,00.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx