Iran sees progress at nuclear talks

Iran said differences were narrowing at talks today with six world powers looking for curbs on Tehran’s developing nuclear weapons.

But others said it was too early to speak of progress.

“Compared to the Geneva talks, the negotiations in Istanbul are being held in a more positive way,” Iranian delegate Abolfazl Zohrevand said, referring to talks in the Swiss city that ended last month with an agreement just to meet again in Turkey.

“There are good signs that the two sides will make progress.”

A diplomat familiar with the talks, however, said the two sides stated their positions then broke for lunch.

The six powers – China, Britain, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany - hope to nudge Iran toward acknowledging the need to reduce worries that it might turn its enrichment programme to making weapons.

Tehran denies such aspirations, insisting it wants only to make nuclear fuel.

But concerns have grown because its uranium enrichment programme could also make fissile warhead material, because of its nuclear secrecy and also because the Islamic nation refuses to co-operate with attempts to investigate suspicions that it ran experiments related to making nuclear weapons.

While the six would like to kickstart talks focused at freezing Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, Tehran has repeatedly said this activity is not up for discussion.

Instead, Iranian officials are pushing an agenda that covers just about everything except its nuclear programme: global disarmament, Israel’s suspected nuclear arsenal, and Tehran’s concerns about US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere.

“We want to discuss the fundamental problems of global politics at Istanbul talks,” said Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested any push to restrict the meeting to Iran’s nuclear programme would fail.

Zohrevand told the Associated Press that compromise by Iran’s negotiation partners was moving the talks forward.

“They didn’t get what they had hoped to get from pressure and sanctions,” he said. “They are showing some flexibility. This is helping both sides to be optimistic.”

Tehran is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to cease enrichment and other activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons, and Iran came to the table warning that it was in no mood to compromise.

“Resolutions, sanctions, threats, computer virus nor even a military attack will stop uranium enrichment in Iran,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Iranian state TV.

He was alluding to UN sanctions imposed on Iran, apparent damage to the enrichment programme due to the Stuxnet malware virus – thought to have been created by Israel or the US – and threats of possible military action by Israel or the US if Iran remains defiant.

But British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Iranians must “show in these negotiations that they are prepared to discuss the whole of their nuclear programme.”

The unnamed diplomat said EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton would renew a 2008 offer providing Iran technical and logistical support for peaceful nuclear activities as well as trade and other incentives in exchange for its willingness to focus on its atomic programme.