Iran ready to resume nuclear talks but waiting for world powers

Iran is ready to resume nuclear talks with the world powers but is waiting for their reply to fix a date and venue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday.

The spokesman said in a press briefing in Tehran that Iran was ready for both technical talks and political talks with the 5+1 group in charge of political negotiations in the dispute over Iran's controversial nuclear programs.

The 5+1 group - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany - is represented by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

The technical talks concern a swap of Iranian low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel via Russia and France to be used in the medical reactor in Tehran. The talks are supposed to be held with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia and the U.S. in Vienna.

The political talks with the 5+1 group are more focused on persuading Iran to suspend its enrichment programs in return for improving political and economic co-operation with the EU and even the U.S.

"We are ready for both talks and as soon as we receive the final details from the other side (IAEA and 5+1 group) such as the date and venue, we will start," Mehmanparast said.

The spokesman added that the political talks between Ashton and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saedi Jalili would probably be held in late September or at the beginning of October but the venue was still unclear.

Iran had earlier said that it was prepared to return to the negotiating table with the 5+1 group on condition that the EU first clarified its position on Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal, and on the Jewish state's rejection of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also requested that Turkey and Brazil - the only UN Security Council members that opposed fresh sanctions against Iran, and who negotiated an alternative nuclear fuel swap deal for Tehran's medical reactor - were also involved.

Iran has repeatedly said that it would be ready to resume talks with the world powers but not meet their main demand which is suspension of its uranium enrichment programs.

Tehran rejects Western charges that the country is pursuing a secret military program, saying that as an NPT signatory and IAEA member it has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear projects, including uranium enrichment.

Iran opened on Sunday its first, Russian-built nuclear power plant in the southern Persian Gulf port of Bushehr, which is tolerated by the West as the plant is mainly run by Russian experts, the fuel is supplied by Russia and the waste is returned to that country.

	Iranian technicians at work at the Bushehr Nuclear Plant in Iran, November 2009.
	Photo by: AP