Iran agrees to allow UN visit to nuclear plant
By Alexandra TroubnikoffFri Oct 2 04:06:05 EST 2009
Thu Oct 1 18:06:05 UTC 2009
GENEVA, Oct 1 AFP - Iran has agreed to allow UN access to a new nuclear plant at talks with international powers which included its highest level talks with the United States in three decades, officials say.
Representatives of the Western powers, which have threatened new sanctions over what they suspect is a bomb-making program, expressed cautious optimism over the Geneva negotiations. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran would have to show "concrete actions".
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said the atmosphere at the talks on Thursday had been "constructive" but again defended his country's "absolute" right to uranium enrichment.
Clinton and Mottaki stayed away from the talks, leaving the negotiations in a villa overlooking Lake Geneva to top envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, along with Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Jalili and US envoy William Burns held their countries' highest level talks in 30 years. They discussed the increasingly tense nuclear standoff and human rights, US officials said.
Iran, which denies it is seeking a nuclear bomb, said it would let UN nuclear watchdog inspectors visit the new enrichment plant at the holy city of Qom, probably within two weeks, said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Iran and the international powers will also meet again this month, a US official said without giving details.
"Iran has told us that it plans to cooperate fully and immediately with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the new enrichment facility near Qom," Solana told a press conference.
"We agreed to intensify dialogue in the coming weeks," he said, adding "this is only a start" and that "we shall need to see progress on some of the practical steps we discussed today".
Solana said the world powers and Iran had agreed in principle on Iranian uranium being sent to a third country to be enriched and used for a research reactor in Tehran.
"It was a productive day, but the proof of that has not yet come to fruition," Clinton told reporters in Washington after speaking with US officials in Geneva. "We want to see concrete actions."
The talks came only a week after the new Iranian uranium enrichment plant was disclosed and just days after Iranian missile tests again rattled international nerves.
Jalili told the envoys during the talks that Tehran would never give up its "absolute" right to nuclear power, Iran's ISNA news agency reported. The same message was given by the country's foreign minister at the United Nations in New York.
The UN security council has already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran for refusing to end its uranium enrichment. And the western powers have warned Iran it could face further sanctions and isolation if it fails to meet international demands.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin said his country would press for new sanctions against Iran if it fails to clear up nuclear suspicions by December.
Russia and China have been reluctant to impose more sanctions on Iran, but Russia has indicated it could reconsider its opposition.
The US envoy Burns met separately with Jalili highlighting the new engagement policy favoured by US President Barack Obama.
Burns used the encounter to "reiterate the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear program", US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement.
He also told Jalili Iran needed to take concrete and practical steps to reassure the international community that its nuclear program was peaceful.
It was the first direct US-Iran talks on a bilateral issue since the parties broke relations 30 years ago, although meetings took place during President George W Bush's term on Iraq and Afghanistan, a US official said.
"This is the first time that we've agreed to sit down with Iran as a full member of the P5+1 discussions," Wood told reporters.
However, he warned: "We're willing to engage in this process but we're not going to do it forever. There's going to come a point when we're not going to engage."
The talks were held in a picturesque setting with a view to Lake Geneva and the Alps, and the delegations took a break for a buffet-style lunch that included trout, chicken and chocolate mousse, an official said.
