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By Wang Zhaokun Iran and six major world powers concluded their two days of talks in Geneva Tuesday on Tehran's nuclear program and agreed to meet again in Turkey early next year. "We and Iran agreed to a continuation of these talks in late January in Istanbul, where we plan to discuss practical ideas and ways of cooperating toward a resolution of our core concerns about the nuclear issue," Reuters quoted the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, as saying. Ashton, who acts on behalf of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US in the talks, said the agreement was reached after "detailed, substantial talks focusing on the Iranian nuclear program." However, Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, immediately voiced disagreement with Ashton's remarks. "The only outcome of our talks today was the agreement we reached to organize more talks based on cooperation. Anything other than this has no value," AFP quoted Jalili as saying. "I heard some other comments have been made, and that is not true." He added that Iran's right to develop civil nuclear energy will not be discussed in Istanbul and that the country will not bow to pressure from other countries, Reuters reported. Earlier Tuesday, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran's approach to the talks was "positive and constructive." The choice of Istanbul as the venue for the next round of talks is unusual, as Turkey and Brazil in June voted against a draft resolution by the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Tehran. Tehran has long been insisting that its nuclear programs are not aimed at building atomic bombs. On the eve of the Geneva talks, Iran announced that it had, for the first time ever, begun to use domestically produced uranium concentrates at its enrichment facility, a move that suggests Iran has found a way to bypass international sanctions banning Tehran from importing raw uranium. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that talks with world powers would be "fruitful" if sanctions were scrapped. However, Yin Gang, a senior Middle East expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the lifting of UN sanctions was not an option. "Removing those sanctions would render all the UN resolutions concerning Iran's nuclear program invalid," Yin said. "The six world powers involved in the nuclear talks have the same position on safeguarding the validity of such resolutions, and they are unlikely to back down on the issue," he added. A US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the Geneva talks were "difficult and candid." "We had several informal interactions, which were useful to reinforce our main concerns," the official said, adding that the US did not have a formal bilateral meeting with Iran during the two days of talks. Agencies contributed to this story |
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