UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Foreign ministers of major powers failed to come up with a joint strategy for dealing with Iran after Tehran sought to influence the negotiations with a stunning last-minute diplomatic maneuver, officials said.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said a U.S.-hosted, three-hour meeting on Monday of ministers from Russia, Britain, China and Germany did not reach agreement.
"We are still considering our work," he told reporters after the late night session had ended.
A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meeting agreed that Iran must pay a price for not complying with U.N. resolutions but did not come to terms on what form that would take.
"I think the prospects for an agreement this week are not substantially good," he said. "Clearly we had a ways to go."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Tass news agency: "All of us agreed that Iran must not have nuclear weapons." He stressed Moscow's desire to draw Iran into "fruitful" negotiations on the issue.
Major power political directors will meet on Iran on Tuesday in New York and will likely meet again next week but sponsors -- aiming for unity -- have backed off a timeline for security council action, the U.S. official said.
Russia and China have been resisting a U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Britain and France and backed by the United States that would legally require Iran to halt uranium enrichment. Britain and France had wanted to get the resolution passed before the Monday night ministers' meeting.
The meeting of the Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members plus Germany and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President George W. Bush proposing "new ways" to resolve their differences.
RAMBLING TREATISE
But a copy obtained by Reuters showed a long rambling treatise that focused on American wrongdoings and did not contain ideas for ending the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
It was the first letter from an Iranian head of state to a U.S. president since Washington broke off relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
how can you talk to zelots like thes "people" they only respect strength
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060509/2006-05-09T075844Z_01_N09243624_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-NUCLEAR-IRAN-DC.html
I would encourage all those who think appeasment is the way to go with Iran to read this piece by Amir Taheri.
Something interesting is happening with regard to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Slowly the blame is shifting from the mullahs to the Bush administration as the debate is redirected to tackle the hypothetical question of U.S. military action rather than the Islamic Republic's real misdeeds. ''No War on Iran'' placards are already appearing where ''No Nukes for Iran'' would make more sense.......
The attempt at fabricating another ''cause'' with which to bash America is backed by the claim that the mullahs are behaving badly because Washington refuses to talk to them. Some of this buzz is coming from those who for years told the U.S. to let them persuade Iran to mend its ways. They include German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British and French colleagues in the European Union trio that negotiated with Iran for years. Preparing to throw in the towel, they now say the U.S. should ''directly engage'' Iran. That would enable them to hide their failures and find a pretext for blaming future setbacks on the U.S.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008353
Constructive comments welcome! 
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