Rice urges more pressure on Iran

By Sue Pleming

BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday it would be a big mistake to drop a demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and more pressure should be piled on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

The U.N. atomic watchdog agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, annoyed the United States and others last week when he called for a face-saving compromise that could cap Iran's uranium enrichment at current levels rather than demand full suspension of a program the West says is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

Rice told reporters such a strategy would not work and made clear it was the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany that were negotiating with the Iranians and not the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"I think that would be a very big mistake," she told reporters travelling with her for a G8 foreign ministers meeting in Germany where Iran will be a key issue on the agenda.

"We are firm about the need to suspend and we are firm about the need to continue to increase the pressure," she added.

Iran says it is enriching uranium only to generate electricity, has a right to do so and will not suspend enrichment.

Rice will be in Vienna, the IAEA's headquarters, on Thursday for a women's empowerment conference and to address the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe but she said she had no plans to see ElBaradei.

"The key here is that the IAEA is not an agency that is negotiating with the Iranians. That is being done under a Security Council resolution by six states," she said, referring to negotiations led by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on behalf of major powers.