Iran Praises Milestone Nuclear Talks

World Powers hold nuclear talks with Iran

REUTERS

Iran and world powers agreed Wednesday to hold new talks in March and April over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear drive, after negotiations in Kazakhstan which Tehran praised as a possible turning point in the decade-old dispute.

There was no sign of a major breakthrough over Iran's nuclear ambitions in the Kazakh city of Almaty but the agreement on new meetings suggested potential for progress.

The talks saw the five UN Security Council members and Germany offer Iran a softening of non-oil or financial sector-related sanctions in exchange for concessions over Tehran's sensitive uranium enrichment operations.

A senior US official said Iran "appeared to listen carefully to the offer" and its chief negotiator Saeed Jalili issued rare praise for the world powers' "positive" and "realistic" attitude.

Speaking in Vienna, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi went even further, saying he was "very optimistic about the outcome".

"Things are taking a turning point and I think the Almaty meeting will be (seen as) a milestone," Salehi said.

Jalili, seen as close to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was more circumspect, saying the world powers' proposals were "more realistic, compared to what they said in the past."

"We consider these talks as a positive step which could be completed by taking a positive and constructive approach and taking reciprocal steps," he told reporters in Almaty.

Uranium enrichment is the most sensitive part of the nuclear cycle as the process can be used to make both nuclear fuel and the explosive core of a nuclear bomb that the powers fear Iran wants to develop.

Officials said the sides would next meet at the level of senior civil servants on March 17-18 in Istanbul.

Talks involving Jalili and the six world powers represented by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton would then take place in Almaty on April 5-6.

In contrast to the more effusive Iranian response, Ashton refused to be drawn into a judgement of the talks' success.