Iran Nuclear Watch: EU-3 May Begin Nuclear Talks Without the United States

French President Jacques Chirac (C), Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel review the troops. Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the need to secure Russian energy supplies to the EU were expected to dominate a summit in an elegant chateau north of Paris between the leaders of France, Russia and Germany.

Reuters: Nuclear talks with Iran may start without U.S.

France, Britain and Germany would be willing to begin talks with Iran even if it has not suspended its nuclear enrichment program first, but Washington would not take part, a German magazine reported on Saturday.

So, Solana and Larijani will meet next week (barring Iranian cancellations again) in Brussels and then the EU-3 will met with Iran representatives.

And what makes anyone think this will yield results?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced no direct approval to this strategy but signaled she could tolerate it, the magazine reported.

If this plan does not result in a breakthrough in the West’s years-long nuclear standoff with Iran, the six countries will have no choice but to begin debating serious sanctions of the kind Washington wants imposed on the Islamic republic, it said.

There will be NO serious sanctions from the United Nations Security Council in any case. EU-3 are as feckless as they are utterly useless in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

And Russia?

Russia has already begun to stake out its own position in these negotiations and will put maximum pressure on the United States for concessions to Russia, if Russia is to play ball with us in the Security Council. High on their list is getting the US to back off from its newly imposed sanctions on the Russian company, SukhoÃ¯. The US imposed a new export control ban under the 2000 Iran Non-proliferation Act against Sukhoi based on a finding that Sukhoi had engaged in providing sensitive missile and defense technology to Iran. This followed a deal signed by Moscow last year involving surface-to-air missiles for Iran reportedly worth some $750 million.

Stay tuned……