Iran to negotiate on nuke proposals

TEHRAN: Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki renewed on Saturday Iran's readiness for negotiations over its nuclear proposals but made no direct response to calls from the major powers for urgent talks.

"By giving this package, the Islamic Republic of Iran has shown its determination to enter into negotiation on the main topics in the package," Mottaki told reporters in Tehran.

"I think that if one takes into account separate statements made by these powers, they acknowledge that our package has major topics for holding constructive negotiations," he said.

"This can be the basis of negotiations... we hope that they (the six world powers) address our package seriously, deeply and analytically."

Iran handed over its new proposals for allaying Western concerns over its nuclear programme on Wednesday.

A US non-profit investigative journalism group, Pro Publica, said Thursday it obtained a copy of proposals in which Tehran said it was prepared to hold "comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations."

The talks would address nuclear disarmament as well as a global framework for the use of "clean nuclear energy," according to the document published on Pro Publica's website, but it did not address Iran's own nuclear programme.

Washington has already expressed disappointment with the package. "It is not really responsive to our greatest concern," assistant secretary of state for public affairs, Philip Crowley, told reporters on Thursday.

But Moscow has been more upbeat. "There is something to dig into," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The six powers -- Britain, China, France and Germany as well as Russia and the United States -- have since called for urgent talks with Iran on the proposals.

"We will seek an early meeting, and we will seek to test Iran's willingness to engage," Crowley said in Washington.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who regularly represents the powers in talks with Tehran, said he was in contact with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in a bid to arrange a meeting at the "earliest possible opportunity."

Mottaki gave no direct response to the call for urgent talks.

"We have handed over the package and, if the conditions are ready, negotiations can start," he said without elaborating on what conditions were necessary.

World powers have given a late September deadline to Tehran for starting talks with them in a bid to halt Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment, the process which produces nuclear fuel or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

They have warned that if Tehran fails to talk it could face more sanctions.

Mottaki dismissed the threat of sanctions.

"The West has four years of failed experience when it comes to sanctions against Iran," he said.

The UN Security Council has adopted three sets of sanctions against Iran over its failure to heed the repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment.

But on Friday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted once again that the regime would not bow to international pressure.

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi meanwhile renewed Iran's insistence that its nuclear programme is purely civilian and that it has no ambitions to develop an atomic bomb.

"We regard production of weapons of mass destruction as contrary to our religious, human and national principles," the Fars news agency quoted Vahidi as saying.

"Manufacturing nuclear weapons is not, and has never been, on our agenda."