Iran urges 'swift, explicit' response to its proposals
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E-mail Xinhua, May 24, 2012
Iran asked six world powers on Wednesday to provide a swift and explicit response to its package of proposals presented in the ongoing nuclear talks in Baghdad, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Iranian delegation to Baghdad nuclear talks led by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, offered on Wednesday a five- pivot package of proposals to representatives of the UN Security Council's five permanent members (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China) plus Germany, known as P5+1, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The package encompasses proposals on Iran's nuclear program as well as other international issues, said the report.
It envisaged a step-by-step approach to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program and the practical steps that the western governments should take in parallel, according to IRNA.
Iran's demand of "swift, explicit" response from world powers was raised during a meeting on Wednesday afternoon between Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator Ali Baqeri and EU deputy foreign policy chief Helga Schmid, said Fars.
At the meeting, both sides reviewed the Iranian package of proposals and Baqeri called for the world powers' swift and explicit response to Tehran's proposals, according to the report.
Representatives of P5+1 are expected to put forward their views on Iran's proposals on another round of meeting on Thursday.
The six world powers also offered proposals, but they presented their package verbally, said IRNA's report without elaborating.
On Wednesday, Iran denied the reports saying that the world powers submitted a proposal to Iran to reduce uranium enrichment during Baghdad nuclear talks.
"Any proposal to reduce uranium enrichment from 20 percent to 5 percent and in return to ease sanctions imposed on Iran, has not been presented by the world powers," Talib Mahdi, a member of the Iranian delegation, told Xinhua on the sidelines of Baghdad meeting.
"Such proposal could be accepted by Iran because it would be a clear international recognition that Iran has the right to obtain nuclear energy," Mahdi said.
Earlier in the day, Michael Mann, spokesman of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told reporters that "We have presented a proposal to Iran stating that Iran reduces its uranium enrichment from 20 percent to 5 percent in return for easing sanctions."
In the afternoon, representatives from Iran and the P5+1, in addition to the EU, kicked off crunch talks aimed at defusing the long-running escalating crisis over Tehran's nuclear program.
The meeting was held in one of the palaces in the presidential complex in the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad that houses the Iraqi government offices and some foreign embassies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia believed Iran has been ready to coordinate its actions over its nuclear program.
Lavrov said Moscow expected the Baghdad meeting to elaborate " the algorithm of the further joint work" and practical steps to resolving the Iranian nuclear problem.
"This will be the process we would like to see the particular results at every step: Iran makes a step toward the requirements of the international community, the international community makes the steps which ease sanction pressure on Iran," the diplomat said.
Lavrov said this process must continue until "we reach the point where it is clear for everybody the Iranian nuclear program has no military dimension."
Russia opposed the U.S. unilateral sanctions against Iran and saw them as "absolutely unacceptable," Lavrov said.
On Wednesday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator held separate talks with China's representative and with Ashton to discuss Iran' s package of proposals. No details about the meetings have been released so far.
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