European Ministers Consider Possible Actions Against Iran

New York Times:

LUXEMBOURG, April 10 (Reuters) — European foreign ministers reviewed options for steps against Iran for the first time on Monday, including possible visa bans and financial sanctions if Iran pressed on with its nuclear activity.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who drafted a confidential options paper for the 25 ministers, and the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said that the discussion here on Monday was just a contingency-planning exercise and that sanctions were not imminent.

The ministers appealed to Iran in a statement to comply with the United Nations request to suspend all nuclear enrichment-related activities, and they reaffirmed their support for a diplomatic solution.

The statement made no mention of possible sanctions. But European Union officials said that among the possible steps cited in Mr. Solana's paper were a travel ban on individuals involved in Iran's nuclear program, tighter export controls on dual-use technologies — goods ostensibly acquired for civilian purposes that can possibly be diverted to military use — a ban on Iranian students studying sensitive sciences in European universities and, ultimately, a ban on export credit guarantees to companies trading with Iran.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised "good news" in the next week on the nuclear program — perhaps, a newspaper said, that Iran had enriched uranium to a level used in power plants. Iran "will not step back one iota from the right of the Iranian nation," he said at a rally.

Mr. Solana told reporters that his plan, details of which were first reported by The Financial Times, was not for immediate sanctions. "What we are doing today is a reflection on what may happen if at the end of the day" what is happening in the "Security Council does fail," Mr. Solana said.

Mr. Solana dismissed a report in The New Yorker that Washington was stepping up plans for a possible airstrike. "It has nothing to do with reality," he said. "Any military action is absolutely off the table for us."

Asked if a visa ban on Iranian officials was among the possibilities, he replied, "There are many things," and added that a "visa ban is a classical type of measure."

The next step would depend on what the International Atomic Energy Agency reports to the United Nations Security Council this month. The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said it was "essential" for Iran to suspend sensitive nuclear activity. "It is necessary to listen perfectly to what the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says," he said at a news conference on Monday during an official visit to Algiers.

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the European Union would adopt its own restrictions against Iran only if there was deadlock in the United Nations.

The Solana paper charged that Iran had moved backward in all areas of concern to the European Union, including the nuclear program, human rights and support that it might be providing for terrorism.