Agence France-Presse,
ANKARA: Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani said Thursday that talks with the EU's foreign policy chief had made progress towards a “united view” on ending the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.
“I think in some areas we are approaching a united view and that is to say the best approach is to have the issue settled through negotiation,” Larijani told journalists after meeting in Ankara for a second day with Javier Solana.
The two men said they would meet again in two weeks but did not give an exact date or time.
Solana had said ahead of Thursday's meeting that he did not expect a “great breakthrough” in what is a first round of new talks to persuade Iran to heed UN calls to halt uranium enrichment.
The UN Security Council has imposed two sets of limited sanctions on Iran to get it to freeze its enrichment work, which includes a large scale plant underground at Natanz and a pilot research plant above ground.
“We cannot make miracles but we have tried to move a little bit the dossier forward,” Solana said.
Tehran says its programme is to generate civilian nuclear power but the United States and its allies believe Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons.
Neither negotiator gave details at a joint press conference after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul or said whether a compromise was possible.
But diplomats told AFP that Solana had made a proposal to the Iranians based on a text, the so-called Swiss proposal, worked out in recent months between Swiss and Iranian diplomats.
The Swiss proposal foresees a 30-day moratorium period, during which Iran would not expand its nuclear programme and world powers would not seek further UN sanctions.
During this period, the two sides would work out a “double time-out” during which Iran would suspend uranium enrichment and the so-called P5 plus one — the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany — would suspend current UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
This plan is based on simultaneous suspensions first proposed by UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
The “time-out” would lead to talks between Iran and the six world powers on trade and other benefits for Iran.
The Swiss proposal does not spell out if the Iranians must suspend all enrichment work, or if they would be allowed to continue research-level production, something the US officially opposes.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Oslo on Thursday that Iran must stop all enrichment in order to head off further UN sanctions and to begin talks on a benefits package.
But Larijani said in an interview with CNN Turkish television: “A full halt in enriching uranium is not on the agenda.”
A diplomat who closely monitors the Iranian nuclear issue said Iran would never agree to stop all enrichment work “and so the issue becomes the pilot (research) project, whether the six will accept that the pilot project continues.”
Another idea being floated is to let Iran spin centrifuges empty, without the uranium feedstock gas these machines need to make enriched uranium. But US officials have specifically rejected this as a compromise.
Solana said after the meeting here that there had not been “specific discussions” on suspending uranium enrichment.
