WASHINGTON, Sept 28: The United States warned on Thursday that time was running out for European negotiators to convince Iran to suspend its suspect nuclear activities, after another round of talks ended inconclusively.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Iran had not agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program in the discussions between its top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Berlin.

And he reaffirmed that a new deadline for Iranian compliance that was agreed last week among the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany — the so-called P-5-plus-1 nations — was looming and would not be changed.

“The timeline that was agreed in New York stays, and we are getting short now in terms of that time,” he said, referring to the moment when the six nations would seek UN sanctions against Tehran.

The deadline has not been officially revealed by the six nations, which also include Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, but European diplomats involved in the negotiations said it was sometime next week.

“The ball is in their court,” Mr McCormack said of the Iranians.

“Nobody wants to go down the path of sanctions — that is not our first choice,” he said.

“But we are prepared, along with the P-5-plus-1, to go down that path if that’s the door that the Iranian regime wants to open.”

Iran has already ignored an Aug 31 deadline set by the UN Security Council for it to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities that Washington and others believe is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

Tehran insists the program is only for producing fuel for nuclear power stations.

Solana and Larijani characterised their two days of talks, which ended on Thursday, as positive and constructive, but said the two sides would not be in touch again next week.

Several western diplomats who were briefed on the talks, alleged the Iranians were still refusing to commit to suspending their uranium enrichment programme, accusing Mr Larijani of trying to drag out talks with Mr Solana.

“We have been progressing,” Mr Solana told reporters after discussions with Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani.—Reuters