Iran today made a formal request for a date and venue to be fixed for talks to resume with world powers focusing on Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili sent a letter to EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton saying he wanted to see “representatives from both sides in contact to set a date and place for the new round of talks,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
Ashton represents the so-called P5+1 group of world powers, comprising the United States, Russia, China, France,
Britain and Germany.
Last week, Ashton declared that the group was ready “to resume talks with Iran on the nuclear issue,” following an
initial proposal she made in October last year that was accepted by Iran on February 14.
In his latest letter, Jalili hailed that readiness and insisted on “the need to have constructive, serious talks
without preconditions and with the goal of having long- term cooperation,” according to the Farsi-language report by IRNA.
He also welcomed what he said was Ashton’s position “respecting the rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran to use
nuclear energy for peaceful ends consistent with the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.”
The last round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 broke down in Istanbul in January 2011. Western diplomats said the collapse resulted from Iran’s insistence on discussing matters other than its nuclear programme.
Tehran has repeatedly said its nuclear activities are exclusively peaceful.
————————- (AFP)