IRAN:Iran's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said yesterday that Iran and the EU were nearing a "united view" in some areas of their talks and new ideas were raised to break an international impasse over Tehran's atomic programme.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the talks had been constructive and conducted in a good atmosphere, although no "great breakthrough" was on the cards for now.
Mr Larijani and Mr Solana spoke at a news conference in Turkey's capital before resuming discussions, which ended in the early afternoon. Talks are to reconvene in two weeks.
The US State Department said it was briefed on the talks and was not aware of any "substantive progress".
The US and other western powers suspect Iran has a secret nuclear arms programme, and UN sanctions have been imposed on Tehran. Iran says its drive to produce uranium fuel is for electricity only and is vital to economic development.
"In some areas we are approaching a united view. That is to say that the best approach is to settle all the issues through negotiations based on law and international rules and regulations," Mr Larijani said in remarks translated from Farsi.
"We had transparent and frank talks and there were new ideas also introduced. I would not say they are all complete ideas but they will serve as capacity for continuing talks. We should give them time to grow," he told reporters later.
He and Mr Solana did not go into the substance of their two-day talks, their first for more than two months.
The core dispute is Iran's insistence on a right to a sovereign nuclear energy industry against a UN demand that it halt all such activity to win a suspension of sanctions against it and launch negotiations leading to trade benefits for Tehran.
Some diplomats and analysts say Iran and the six world powers handling Iran's atomic file may eventually need to accept a partial enrichment freeze under strict UN inspections to overcome the deadlock. But both sides have publicly denied this.
Asked if he and Mr Larijani discussed a limited suspension as a compromise to enable negotiations, Mr Solana told reporters: "We didn't enter any specific discussions of that nature. We have moved on in general terms. Some progress has been made. As you know, the situation is difficult."
Asked the same question, Mr Larijani said: "That idea is an old presumption. If you just go for a suspension, there are no other issues remaining to solve through negotiations."
But he also told CNN Turk television that Tehran was trying to find a "middle way" out of preconditions imposed by the West. "Suspension of enrichment activities is not an order from God," he said.
A European diplomat said the nature of an enrichment freeze came up in the talks. But another said it was the Iranians who were interested in relaxing the definition, not the western powers.
Analysts said the key to resolving the crisis was finding a definition of an enrichment suspension both sides could tolerate. This could, for example, mean suspending uranium fuel production but exempting the building or testing of centrifuge machines.
European officials say such compromises could be struck in the future, but only after Iran freezes enrichment activity.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proclaimed Iran's ability to enrich on an "industrial scale", but UN inspectors say it remains at test level in Tehran's underground Natanz plant. - ( Reuters)