JERUSALEM/DUBAI, (Reuters) – The United States and its allies are pressing for an end to Iran’s high-level uranium enrichment and the closure of a facility built deep under a mountain as talks on Tehran’s nuclear standoff with the West resume this week.
Iranian media and Western officials said the talks, which collapsed more than a year ago, would begin on Saturday in Istanbul.
A return to the table, as the Western allies tighten sanctions over what they say is Tehran’s programme to develop nuclear weapons, had been in doubt after Iran and the P5+1 countries – the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – released conflicting statements about the venue.
Tehran had earlier voiced concerns about holding talks in Turkey, whose opposition to Iranian ally President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has angered the Islamic Republic.
“After weeks of debates, Iran and the six world powers agreed to attend a first meeting in Istanbul,” the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing unnamed sources. State-run English language Press TV carried the same report.
Fars also said the sides had agreed to a second round of talks in Baghdad if there was progress in Turkey.
A senior U.S. official said that getting Iran to suspend high-level uranium enrichment and close a nuclear facility built deep under a mountain near the holy city of Qom are “near-term priorities” for the United States and its allies.
The New York Times said the United States and other Western nations planned to demand Iran immediately close and ultimately dismantle the Fordow facility and also would call for a halt in the production of 20-percent enriched uranium.
The U.S. official told Reuters “20 percent and closing Fordow are near-term priorities” for the Obama administration and its international partners in dealing with Iran.
An Iranian official rejected any demand that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium to 20 percent and close the Fordow site.
“We see no justification for such a request from the P5+1,” the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, told the Iranian student news agency.
