Iran may agree to formal nuclear talks, report says
EU official made comment after senior western diplomats met in Brussels to discuss progress on a fourth round of Iran nuclear sanctions.
By Reuters Tags: Israel news Iran nuclear EU USThere are signs Iran could reply in the next two months to a formal request for negotiations over its nuclear program, a senior EU official said on Friday after talks among major world powers.
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Technicians measuring parts of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo. |
| Photo by: AP |
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said hints and suggestions, including from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, indicated that Iran could reply to a written request or propose talks of its own sometime in late August or September.
"We've had these indications from the Iranians talking about late August or early September," the official told reporters.
"Sometimes it seems to suggest a reply to our request at that time, and sometimes it seems to suggest a meeting. We look forward to both a reply and a meeting.
"I hope it will come soon."
The official was speaking after senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China met in Brussels to discuss progress on a fourth round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations against Iran last month.
The six countries, often referred to as the EU3+3, are hoping the sanctions will urge Iran to return to negotiations over its nuclear program, which the West says is designed to develop nuclear weapons but Iran says is for peaceful purposes.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, who joined the talks in Brussels on Friday, wrote to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili last month inviting him to resume negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.
Ashton, who wrote with the backing of the EU3+3, has not received a reply, but Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, did send a letter to EU foreign ministers this week, one sharply critical of extra EU sanctions on Iran.
Asked if the EU3+3 would be willing to hold talks with anyone other than Jalili if Iran offered, the EU official indicated Jalili was the only credible intermediary.
"Jalili is the correct address for the talks," he said. "It appears to us that he speaks for the Iranian state."
The official acknowledged that the new sanctions regime on Iran, which includes not only UN measures but extra U.S. and EU restrictions, was not going to work on its own to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
"We don't believe that sanctions are going to solve the problem on their own, but equally we don't think that just doing nothing is going to solve the problem either," he said.
"Sanctions are not an end in themselves. As far as we were concerned the motive for sanctions was because we had run out of other options, because the Iranians were no long talking to us."
The objective now was to resume talking to Iran as soon as possible, he said.
"Our whole objective has been eventually to talk to Iran ... What we want is a negotiated settlement and you don't get that without talking to people."
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I shall only believe what Ahmadinejad says when pigs can fly. I have painfully concluded that the United States and Israel are merely fiddling while Rome is about to burn. At this point, I agree with Amitai Etzioni's recent comments in this paper that we, the United States and Israel jointly, have little choice but to attack Iran's nuclear facilities using conventional weaponry. The UN will condemn us, there will be collateral damage, and we will ultimately save millions, if not billions of lives. It is high time the United States extricated ourselves from Afghanistan and applied our limited military resources to a cause that will help secure peace for the United States, Israel, and the Middle East. Neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capability is just such a cause.
sadly the americans are in the process of completely crippling iran's export industry, thus making the entire country bunker down and resume their standard (justified in this case, i guess) the-world-hates-us thinking. iran will eventually have nukes... probably not anytime in the next few years though (seriously, people really underestimate the time that these things take to make! enriched uranium is only ONE component of the process). and when they do, the children alive now who will suffer due to these brilliant "sanctions" will be adults and will hate the west. way to go, geniuses.
The goal of the Iranians is very simple - gain time in order to acquire the Bomb. Then no one will dare to attack them ang they will feel justified to use it because of sanctions and isolation. Their ultimate goal? Use proxies - Hezbollah / Hamas to detonate small bombs in Israel and USA. The Bomb in the Iranian hands is a real world threat, you must think of what reply they will get from Israel or the USA even if only a small one is detonated by the Iranian proxies. We can stop them NOW, before they get it.
You are wrong and a paranoid, like many others who brought unnecessary sufferings to the people of Iraq and Afganesatn.
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"Iran could reply in the next two months to a formal request for negotiations over its nuclear program" Iran is a liar, always have been and always will be! Don't trust one word out of their mouth, they want Israel totally destroyed!! Larry
It is instructive to read the letter Obama sent to Lula just before Brazil attempted to broker a deal with Iran. Obama praised Lula's efforts and expressed his best wishes for a successful deal with Iran. Brazil.... clinched a deal with Iran. At which point Obama.... immediately rushed to the UN Security Council and pushed through Yet Another Round Of Sanctions i.e. Obama torpedoed that deal, despite having previously told Lula to push hard to clinch that same deal. I don't know about you, Larry, but I look at that sequence of events and I know who the lying bastard is, and he ain't Iranian and he ain't from Brazil.
Many in Israel appear to want Iran totally destroyed. The two make a great pair.
...come on boys lift the game.....dull,dull and dull
Come on Larry, Who told repeated lies to its parliment, its people and the whole world about WMD in IRAQ. Surely the world has proof and know who is lier and who is not. come out your cocon and see the light!