Iran and the big-three European Union states are to hold new talks this week in the wake of Iran's decision to resume making parts for centrifuges used to enrich uranium, officials said in Teheran Sunday. 

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the talks with Britain, France and Germany -- which last year brokered Iran's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog -- would take place "in the coming days."

"The Islamic republic will have discussions with the Europeans this week," a top national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

"We are ready for dialogue and we accept the invitation from the three Europeans," he was also quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA.

Iranian television said the talks would begin tomorrow at the experts level, and then move on to meetings at the ministerial level.

The United States and the European Union Saturday called on Iran to go back on its decision to resume the construction of centrifuges, announced by Teheran in retaliation to a critical resolution passed this month at IAEA.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday called for greater international co-operation in nuclear energy as a week-long conference on peaceful uses of atomic power opened in Moscow.

In a message to the conference, due to be opened by UN atomic energy agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the Russian leader praised nuclear power as an engine of economic growth.

(China Daily June 28, 2004)