Six world powers have accepted an Iranian offer for talks on its disputed nuclear programme, the European Union's top diplomat said on Tuesday, after a year's standstill that has increased fears of a slide into a new Middle East war. The announcement by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton came shortly after Russia called for a resumption of face-to-face dialogue as soon as possible, saying an Iranian letter last month showed it was now ready for serious negotiations.
With Israel speaking increasingly loudly of resorting to military action, the talks could provide some respite in a crisis which has driven up oil prices and threatened to suck the United States into its third major war in a decade. Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, wrote to Ashton in February saying Tehran wanted to reopen negotiations and offering to bring unspecified "new initiatives" to the table.
"Today I have replied to Dr Jalili's letter of February 14," Ashton, speaking on behalf of the six powers after weeks of consultations with them, said in a statement. "I have offered to resume talks with Iran on the nuclear issue." Ashton, who represents the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany in dealings with Iran, said the date and venue for the talks would now have to be agreed.
"Our overall goal remains a comprehensive negotiated, long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme, while respecting Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Ashton said in her reply to Jalili.
Western states are likely to tread cautiously, mindful of past accusations that Iran's willingness to talk has been a stalling tactic to blunt pressure and not a route to agreement. The Islamic Republic's latest approach to the six powers comes at a time when it is suffering unprecedented economic pain from expanding oil and financial sanctions.
Talks held sporadically over the past few years have fallen apart over Iran's refusal to address suspicions that is covertly trying to develop atom bombs. After the last round collapsed in January 2011, Western officials signalled there would be no more unless Iran was ready to tackle ways to ease their concerns.
The resumption of talks nonetheless could slow a drift towards military strikes to knock out Iran's uranium enrichment programme, which the West fears is geared to producing atomic bomb fuel and Tehran says is for electricity only. Israel, which says its existence could be threatened if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, is losing confidence in Western efforts to rein in the Islamic Republic with sanctions and diplomatic pressure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured US President Barack Obama on Monday that the Jewish state has made no decision on attacking Iranian nuclear sites, sources close to talks in Washington said. He, however, gave no sign of backing away from the option of military strikes.
But the new prospect of diplomacy contributed to a fall in oil prices on Tuesday, with Brent crude down $1.70 to $122.10 by 1458 GMT. "The risk premium on Iran was pretty high, so one should expect to see that fading because world powers are willing to talk to Iran. It's much harder to launch a military strike on a country if you are talking to them," said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix in Zug, Switzerland.
Russia, which built Iran's first nuclear power plant and has far warmer relations with Tehran than Western nations do, has often stressed the need for talks and said coercive pressure on Tehran is counterproductive. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei) Ryabkov said last month that global powers must work harder to seek agreement with Iran, warning that Tehran's appetite for concessions was waning as it moves closer to being able to build atomic weapons.
Ryabkov said he hoped fresh talks with Iran would address a proposal by president-elect Vladimir Putin for global powers to formally recognise Iran's right to enrich uranium, Tehran to submit its programme to full IAEA supervision, and international sanctions to be lifted. Iran said on Tuesday it would let UN nuclear inspectors visit a military site where they have been repeatedly refused access to check intelligence suggesting explosives tests relevant to atom bombs has been conducted there.
Diplomats, however, cited a proviso in the Iranian statement saying that access to the Parchin site still hinged on a broader agreement on how to settle outstanding issues which the two sides have been unable to reach for five years. An International Atomic Energy Agency report in November said that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin, south-east of Tehran, to conduct high-explosives experiments that are "strong indicators" of an effort to design atomic bombs.
The IAEA requested access to Parchin during talks in Tehran in January and again in February, but the Iranian side refused. "Considering the fact that Parchin is a military site, granting access is a time-consuming process and cannot be permitted repeatedly," Iran's delegation to the Vienna-based IAEA said in the statement. It added that the "process could be ... started when the agreement on modalities is reached" - suggesting Tehran had not relaxed its insistence that there must first be an omnibus agreement on how to settle questions about the nature of Iran's nuclear work before an inspection trip to Parchin could happen. Iranian diplomats and IAEA officials were not immediately available for comment.
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