October 22, 2002	Tuesday	Sha’aban 15,1423

LUXEMBOURG, Oct 21: The European Union will launch a path-breaking dialogue on human rights with Iran in December in a bid to shore up embattled reformists in the Islamic republic, officials said Monday.

The 15-nation EU is seeking to reinforce its political and economic interests in Iran through the unprecedented dialogue, despite the country being labelled by the United States as part of an “axis of evil”.

“The European Union wants this critical dialogue really to get results,” Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller of Denmark, which holds the EU presidency, said.

“There are no preconditions,” he told a news conference after talks among EU foreign ministers here.

“We want the reformists of the Iranian society to be helped by the European Union. They are the majority of the country.”

The launch of the dialogue has faced hurdles in forging a consensus in both the EU and Iranian camps as well as fierce US resistance.

Besides the opposition from Washington, the EU’s embrace of Iran has met with resistance from hardline elements in the Islamic republic opposed to the reformist policies of President Mohammad Khatami.

But EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten confirmed: “We’ll be holding the first round of the human rights dialogue with Iran in Tehran in December.”

Patten said he hoped planned visits to Iran by UN human rights envoys would also take place “over the coming months”.

Outside the Luxembourg talks, several hundred Iranian protestors sought EU backing against the death penalty in their homeland. The protestors, kept back by police, staged fake hangings in a nearby car park.

Calling for “urgent action” from the EU, they brandished placards urging the bloc to present a strong resolution in the United Nations condemning Iran’s record on rights.

But the Danish minister said the EU would not be tabling a UN resolution, explaining “we’ll give the dialogue a chance”.

“If another country outside the European Union is going to table a resolution, then the 15 members of the European Union will look at that resolution and find a common position,” Moeller said.

EU foreign ministers said instead “the EU will convey its deep concern at the serious violations of human rights and the lack of progress in a number of areas” in the UN.

These included violations of freedom of expression and association, “and systematic discrimination against women and girls, as well as against minorities”, the ministers said in a statement after their talks in Luxembourg.

Also of concern were use of the death penalty “and particularly cruel forms of execution such as stoning”.—AFP