LONDON, Feb 19: Western powers need to reassure Iran over its security rather than just ratchet up sanctions if they want to resolve a nuclear standoff, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday.

“The Iran issue is not going to be resolved through sanctions alone. You need to reach out to the country and bring them to engagement. You need to get that process going,” he told a conference in London.

ElBaradei was due to meet Iran’s nuclear negotiator in Vienna on Tuesday and will report later this week on whether Iran has met a 60-day deadline set by the UN Security Council to stop enriching uranium for nuclear fuel.

He said he expected the West to tighten sanctions imposed by the Security Council in December.

“We will probably go even further with sanctions if Iran will not comply (but) the nuclear issue is really the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

“Iran feels insecure. They live in a neighbourhood which is not the most friendly,” he said, pointing out that Pakistan and Russia both have nuclear weapons. “There are grievances between Iran and the West. You have got to address the security issue.”

Tehran has vowed to press ahead with enrichment which the West believes is a secret programme to build atomic bombs. Iran insists it is geared at generating electricity.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions banning transfers of technology and know-how to Iran’s nuclear programme and is hinting at broader penalties if Tehran does not halt its work by Feb 21.

An internal European Union study leaked last week also concluded that international sanctions alone would not prevent Iran making enough high-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb.

Member states commissioned the “reflection paper” from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to assess the effectiveness of their twin-track approach of sanctions and dialogue with Tehran.

ElBaradei said on Monday he did not believe Iran’s nuclear capability posed a risk in the short-term.“It is not an imminent danger ... You are looking at four to eight years” before

Iran could use the uranium in weapons, he said. “That means that we have enough time to engage in a dialogue.”—Reuters