Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Brussels, April 8, IRNA -- The second round of political dialogue between the EU and Iran will be held in Brussels on Thursday, spokesman for the current Greek EU Presidency, Roussos Koundouros, told IRNA Tuesday.

...The spokesman said the aim of the political dialogue is to promote tactical contact between the EU and Iran.

He noted that the dialogue is being held in parallel with the trade and cooperation negotiations (TCA) between Tehran and Brussls.

...The third round of EU-Iran negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) begins in Brussels Tuesday afternoon.

The first round of TCA talks between the EU and the Islamic Republic of Iran was held in Brussels in December and the second round in Tehran in February.


--Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)

Tehran, April 5, IRNA -- Spainish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ana Palacio here Saturday stressed that although Iran and Spain may differ in their perspectives and approaches to certain issues, there was a need to continue the current dialogue.

"We have to work on our dialogue, the dialogue between the European Union and Iran and the dialogue between Spain and Iran, that is a full dialogue without having subjects that you do not touch upon," she said....


--also from INRA

Given the fact that Iran is one of the countries U.S. hawks are trying to cow into submission right now, I'm surprised these contacts aren't considered more newsworthy in the West -- the Iran-EU meetings were mentioned briefly on the "Marketplace Morning Report" that gets tucked into NPR's Morning Edition here in New York, but I can't find other mentions of the meetings in searches of various news sites. The EU's continuing dialogue with Iran suggests that the whole world is apparently not yet with the American neocons' program.

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