EU member states failed to relax a travel ban on Iran's foreign minister in time for him to attend this weekend's Munich security conference, but plan further discussion on whether to let him visit the bloc in future, an EU official said today.
Foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, a conservative close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is on a list of Iranian officials barred from entering the European Union under sanctions imposed to curb Iran's nuclear programme.
Some EU members favour letting him travel to Europe for the sake of engaging with Iran in the long-running nuclear dispute. But the issue is sensitive for the Netherlands, which has frozen diplomatic contacts with Iran after the hanging of a Dutch-Iranian woman for drug smuggling.
An EU official had said that member states had agreed to let Mr Salehi visit the weekend conference in Munich, an annual set-piece attended by heads of government and ministers from many countries. Iran has attended in the past.
But the same official today said: "Munich wanted to invite him and there was a general agreement among (EU) member states to take him off the list, but that didn't happen.
"The plan is for EU ambassadors next week to discuss taking him off the list, because we need to be able to engage with him but it's unclear if the Dutch will agree to that."
Organisers of the Munich Security Conference confirmed that Mr Salehi would not attend the event, but declined further comment.
UN security council diplomats in New York said it made sense to allow Mr Salehi to attend the three-day conference in the interest of continuing talks between Iran, the five permanent security council members and Germany on Iran's nuclear plans.
The United States and its allies suspect Iran of using a civilian nuclear programme as a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran denies this and says it just wants power stations to generate electricity.
British foreign secretary William Hague told the conference he was worried about a growing threat from cyber espionage and cyber crime. He has offered to host an international conference to tackle such issues.
He also cited how the Egyptian government had tried to shut down the Internet, mobile phone networks and broadcasters during mass protests against the rule of president Hosni Mubarak.
He said cyber security was on the agenda of some 30 international organisations, but the debate lacked focus. "We believe there is a need for a more comprehensive, structured dialogue to begin to build consensus among like-minded countries and to lay the basis for agreement on a set of standards on how countries should act in cyberspace," he said.
Britain's coalition government has produced a new national security strategy which ranks cyber attack and cyber crime as a high priority risk. It is spending £650 million on a national cyber security programme.
Agencies