(RTTNews) - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has agreed to one of the two dates suggested by Iran for resuming the stalled negotiations on the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program, several news reports quoting unnamed EU officials said Friday.
Officials said Ashton has agreed to hold the talks on December 5, one of the two dates suggested by Iran earlier this week. She, however, proposed the talks either in Austria or Switzerland, instead of holding them in Turkish city of Istanbul as proposed by Iran.
Ashton had earlier proposed to hold the talks in November in the Austrian capital of Vienna, but Iran said Tuesday that it was willing to hold the proposed talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul either on November 23 or December 5.
Ashton was authorized by the six world powers to try and persuade Tehran to resume the nuclear talks that were stalled after Iran refused to accept a UN-proposed deal last year. The six world powers involved are the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
The EU diplomacy chief would lead a team of officials from the six world powers in the negotiations with Iran, which are aimed at resolving the dispute over Teheran's controversial uranium enrichment program.
However, the emergence of a positive outcome of the talks remains doubtful as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will not negotiate its basic nuclear rights with any other country. He added that Tehran was willing to discuss only regional security issues at the proposed talks.
Though Iran insists that its controversial uranium enrichment work is aimed at producing fuel for a medical-purpose reactor in Tehran that produces isotopes, the West suspects it just a cover-up for the Islamic country's nuclear-weapon ambitions.
The Islamic Republic had already survived four sets of sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council following refusal to halt its uranium enrichment. The last one was imposed this June over Teheran's refusal to accept a U.N.-proposed deal aimed at easing the international concerns over its disputed nuclear program.
The deal was proposed in October 2009 by the then International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei. The proposal envisaged shipping low-enriched Iranian uranium to Russia for further enrichment and then to France for conversion into actual fuel for Teheran's medical-purpose reactor.
The proposed deal was seen as an amicable solution to the issue, as it would provide Iran the nuclear fuel required to run its research reactor while guaranteeing the West that Tehran will not have enough nuclear material to convert into finer-grade uranium required for making nuclear weapons.
Apart from the U.N. sanctions, the United States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Norway and Australia have also imposed their own sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear and missile programs.
source: www.rttnews.com
