France confirmed on Friday that a foreign ministers meeting of the UN Security Council's five permanent members and Germany would be held on July 12 in Paris over Iran's nuclear issue.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will also attend the meeting, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.

He said the meeting "will allow the ministers to state their positions" over the result of the process surrounding the proposals offered on June 6 to Iran in exchange for it suspending uranium enrichment activities.

Solana, who met Iran's National Security Council Secretary Ali larijani in Brussels on Thursday, said their meeting had been a "good start" and had been held in a "positive and constructive atmosphere," according to the French spokesman, although Tehran had failed to give a firm reply to the international offer.

Solana and Larijani will come together again next Tuesday in Brussels, on the eve of the Paris gathering, in an enlarged meeting with foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain and Russia, Mattei said.

The spokesman said he hoped Iran could bring an answer to the international offer before the G8 (Group of eight most industrialized countries) summit, slated for July 15 in St Petersburg, Russia.

(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2006)