AFP: Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said Wednesday that he would meet later in the day with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. BRUSSELS (AFP) Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said Wednesday that he would meet later in the day with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.
“We arranged a meeting for tonight,” Jalili said after a question-and-answer session in the European Parliament in Brussels.
There was no immediate confirmation of the meeting from the office of Solana, who carries out negotiations with Jalili on behalf of the major Western powers.
On Monday, Solana had said he was unsure whether the two men would meet.
The last time they did was in late November in London, a month after a meeting in Rome.
After the London talks the EU foreign policy chief said he was “disappointed” after failing to make a breakthrough in the negotiations.
Solana is seeking to convince Iran to agree to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, offering as an incentive huge cooperation with the West, amid fears the Islamic republic could try to produce an atomic bomb.
Jalili’s visit came a day after the five permanent UN Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany agreed on the text of a new resolution on Iran over its nuclear programme.
This third resolution will be presented to the full Security Council “in the coming weeks,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
A senior US official in Berlin said the new resolution “increases the severity of the sanctions already in place and will also introduce new elements”, but gave no details.
The agreement “sends a strong message to Iran that it needs to comply with UN Chapter 7 resolutions,” Gallegos said, without giving immediate details of the agreement.
By contrast, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the new draft envisages direct talks with Tehran that would include the United States.
Jalili, in his comments to the European Parliament, denied that Iran had any nuclear ambitions.
“How is it that, for our peaceful nuclear activities, they have issued three resolutions?” he said, adding “we are against weapons of mass destruction”.
