TEHRAN: For the last 15 years, Iran has always counted on the European Union to stand against the antagonistic policies of the United States towards the Islamic state and not to let the country drift into international isolation.

This factor increased the shock felt by Iranian officials after Monday’s ultimatum by EU foreign ministers in Brussels when they warned there would be no bilateral trade pact with Tehran unless the country changed its stance on human rights and nuclear non-proliferation.

While the governmental paper Iran reported that President Mohammad Khatami has cancelled in protest a scheduled visit to Belgium, state-run television termed the ultimatum a prologue to a deep Iran-EU crisis.

Although the government is still reiterating that Iran will never accept any pre-conditions from the EU in order to expand political and trade relations, warning signals are being heard within political circles.

“We should not go to the edge of the crag as the EU is not only our leading political but also our leading trade partner,” warned former United Nations envoy Ali Khorram in an interview with the news network Khabar.

In addition President Khatami, while terming pre-conditions inappropriate for a civilized dialogue, called on the country not to give any excuse for the renewed political isolation of the country.

The EU, many of its member-states having already been host to Khatami, had followed for many years either the policy of critical or constructive dialogue with Iran. But since 2002, the EU has changed its tone and become tougher.

It now wants Iran to fulfil four main conditions, including signing an additional nuclear inspection protocol allowing unannounced inspections of the country’s nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The other conditions are the observing of human rights according to internationally acknowledged norms, accepting Israel as a sovereign state and using its influence on anti-Israeli militia groups in line with the global fight against terrorism.

The demands should not be in a form which would damage Iran’s sovereignty, Khorram said, indicating that fulfilling the EU’s conditions would make Iran lose face within the Muslim world.

Iran can indeed accept none of the conditions without contradicting its own basic policies of the last 25 years.

Accepting the additional protocol would give free access to all strategic venues, observing international human rights would question prevailing Islamic laws, and accepting Israel would deny all foreign policy principles which see anti-Israeli militia groups as freedom fighters and not terrorists.

Iran follows an ideological stance while the EU has a very realistic and even materialistic approach, according to political scientist Big Deli, who urged Iran to seek an acceptable compromise.

Reformist circles in Iran accuse hardline bodies such as the judiciary and the senate-like Guardian Council of causing enormous problems not only at home but also for Iran’s foreign diplomacy.

“Why should the whole country pay the external price for internal mistakes,” asks MP Jafar Kambuzia.

The judiciary’s latest political problem was the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi which the judiciary first wanted to play down as a heart attack.

However, it later became clear that she died of a brain haemorrhage during interrogation.

The increasing speculation that Kazemi may have been killed by her interrogators deeply shocked the EU ministers who also expressed concern over the recent wave of arrests of students and journalists during political unrest earlier this month.

Observers, however, believe that the tendency of reformists to blame the problems on hardliners, a trend frequently followed in recent years by the Khatami administration, will no longer be sufficient to satisfy the EU.—dpa