Iran calls on EU to resume nuclear talks

Tehran – Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi has called on the European Union to resume nuclear talks with Iran, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars reported Saturday.

‘There have been new developments with regards to Iran’s nuclear issue and also other issues,’ Salehi said in a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Salehi was referring to his meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano in July, allowing IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and Russian efforts to kickstart the talks.

‘Iran and the EU have various issues to discuss and could complement one another through these talks,’ Salehi told Ashton according to a Foreign Ministry statement carried by Fars.

The statement quoted Ashton as saying that the EU preferred a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

A letter to her from Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saedi Jalili asking to resume nuclear talks would be answered soon, she said.

Ashton said in a statement on Wednesday that restarting six-party talks with Iran was possible but under strict conditions.

The six parties are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – plus Germany.

While Iran insists that its nuclear programmes is solely for peaceful purposes, the West fears that the same technology could be used for a secret nuclear weapons programme.

The six-party talks with Iran have all failed, including the latest one in January in Istanbul.

Tehran has repeatedly rejected the demands of the world powers to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, arguing it is its right as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue peaceful nuclear programmes, including enrichment.

But there appear to be differences within the Iranian administration on how to proceed with the nuclear talks.

Mixed signals have been given out concerning the swap deal signed in May last year in Tehran between Iran, Turkey and Brazil. The deal, which foresees Iran exchanging low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods to be used in a medical reactor in Tehran, was once regarded by both sides as a first step towards establishing mutual trust.

But Iran’s nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi said last month that Iran would no longer discuss the swap deal and would itself carry on with the 20 per cent uranium enrichment required for producing fuel for the Tehran reactor.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad however said in New York this week that the swap deal was still on and Iran would stop the 20 per cent enrichment process as soon as the deal was realized.

via Iran calls on EU to resume nuclear talks – Monsters and Critics.