Ali Bageri, Deputy Secretary of the High Council for National Security of Iran, has emphasized the importance of preliminary negotiations with the six international mediators in Moscow, Trend reports.
Helga Schmidt, Deputy High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was informed by Bageri about the readiness of Iran for preliminary talks in two letters. Iran insists that the European Union twice ignored Tehran’s urges for preliminary negotiations with the six mediators in Moscow on June 18-19, RIA Novosti reports.
Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said earlier that attacking Iran may cause problems for Israel and neighboring states. The dialogue with Iran must continue.
Robert Wood, a US official in the IAEA, said on Tuesday that Iran has enough low-enriched uranium to build several nuclear bombs. There are no such peaceful nuclear programs that would need such volumes of uranium, he claimed.
The six mediators (Russia, China, US, France, UK and Germany) and the IAEA have been trying to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment since 2003, saying that the process threatens the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The US and a set of other Western states, including Israel, accuse Iran of developing nuclear arms against the background of the peaceful atom. Tehran denies all the accusations and insists that the nuclear program is intended to fulfil demand for electricity.
