EU foreign affairs chief calls for prudence on Iran sanctions

(BRUSSELS) - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has cautioned against any hasty European move to slap new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, while announcing she is assuming the role of international intermediary on the issue.

In an interview with AFP Ashton distanced herself from the position of some EU nations, such as France, which are pushing for extra sanctions to be imposed on Tehran which the West suspects of seeking to develop nuclear arms under cover of a civil energy programme.

"We're not moving quickly on anything,," she said, emphasising the need for a UN Security Council decision.

"What we're doing is we're saying very clearly that the next step on Iran is through the Security Council. I'm very clear on that," said the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a new post created by the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty.

"I think we have obligations as an international community, next step Security Council and we wait and see," she underlined.

Last month France urged its European Union partners to prepare new sanctions against Iran, saying they were now required due to Tehran's intransigence over its nuclear programme.

"The Europeans have to prepare the sanctions process," European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche told reporters in Brussels then.

Meanwhile Ashton said she was assuming the role of chief international nuclear negotiator with Tehran, a post occupied until the end of last year by the then EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana -- whose role has been subsumed into her expanded office.

"I take over Javier's position," as representative of the six world powers involved in the talks -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- she said.

"One of the things I've been doing is looking back over the six years of dialogue that Javier has had with Iran. I still want to see dialogue," the British peer added, without giving a date for any future talks.

"It's very important to find a solution through talking but unfortunately we're in a position where we also have to look at what else needs to happen, hence the Security Council," Ashton said.

The EU foreign affairs chief also said she would make her first official trip to the Middle East next month, hoping to relaunch peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.