VIENNA, March 6: The European Union plans to tell a UN nuclear meeting that Iran's expansion of efforts to enrich uranium, a possible path to atom bombs, is deplorable but a negotiated solution remains possible.

The message was in a statement to be given to a session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing body scrutinising Iran's defiance of UN demands.

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei, in an unusually tough reference, said on Monday Tehran's persistent failure to open its books to IAEA inquiries into its nuclear activities after hiding them for almost 20 years set it apart from other nations.

To squeeze Iran into shelving its campaign to make nuclear fuel, six world powers on Monday launched a week of negotiations at the United Nations in New York on widening preliminary sanctions adopted in December. But a deal remained elusive due to resistance from Russia and China, big trade partners of Iran.

In Beijing, China's government echoed the EU statement in urging Iran to be transparent with the IAEA but repeated that talks should take precedence over sanctions to rein in Tehran.

Iran rejects Western suspicions that it is trying to master nuclear bomb technology under the cover of a civilian atomic energy programme, saying it only wants to generate electricity.

“The EU deplores the fact that Iran ... appears determined to pursue enrichment-related activities on an even larger scale,” said the EU statement, expected to be delivered to the board on Wednesday.—Reuters