Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that he will not engage the EU in dialogue over Iran’s nuclear energy program. The prez said that the only institution Iran will communicate is the IAEA. A few days ago the UN Security Council approved another round of sanctions against Iran which prevents certain people from travel and freezes some foreign assets. Iran claims they are fully complying with the IAEA’s requirements for transparency. If they were, however, I don’t see why the Security Council would have gone ahead with these sanctions. Ahmadinejad said

“I have to stress again we will not have any nuclear negotiation with any individual and organisation outside the framework of the agency”

I wonder how long it will take for this issue to come to a head. Iran doesn’t want to play ball with the international community and the international community is not willing to offer Iran any incentive to do so. It’s clear why Iran wants nukes, but if they were to clearly and honestly rid themselves of the program the economic and social rewards would be more than significant.