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Davutoğlu presses for solution in Iran nuke deadlock
Davutoğlu, who was in Kabul on Thursday attending an inauguration ceremony as Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn into office for a second term, met with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, who was also there for the ceremony. Rahimi invited Davutoğlu to Iran during their meeting, both the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) and the Anatolia news agency reported, without elaborating.
Turkish diplomatic sources speaking with Today’s Zaman admitted that the minister’s visit was “a last-minute development.” The same sources, however, stressed that Turkey has been constantly in charge regarding the dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, thus the visit was taking place within this framework.
Davutoğlu proceeded to Tabriz on Thursday evening and had talks with Ahmadinejad there on Friday. In its brief report Anatolia said the two held a tête-à-tête on “nuclear issues” without providing further details. Following the meeting between Iranian and Turkish delegations in which Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also participated, both sides expressed a desire for improving bilateral relations while also underlining that improvement of relations between Iran and Turkey would not be harmful to any country and wasn’t against any country, Anatolia said.
As Davutoğlu was having talks in Tabriz, Brussels on Friday hosted a meeting of major world powers to discuss Iran’s rejection of a nuclear fuel deal, after US President Barack Obama warned of “consequences” for Tehran.
US representatives met in Brussels with representatives from five other nations -- Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany -- to discuss what measures could be used against Iran, according to an EU official who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to disclose details of the gathering.
In Berlin, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Friday he believes that Iran has not totally rejected his agency’s nuclear fuel plan but that time was running out.
On Wednesday, Mottaki stated that Iran would only accept the fuel deal if the swap of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for nuclear fuel would be implemented simultaneously.
ElBaradei has accordingly proposed Turkey as a trusted intermediary, whereby Iran would ship the nuclear fuel to Turkey, which would hold on to it while Russia enriches a separate batch of nuclear fuel. Russia would only receive the original Iranian fuel once it had delivered the enriched fuel to Iran.
“We attach great importance to resolving regional issues through diplomacy. We haven’t had contact concerning the statement which came from Iran today, but we will,” Davutoğlu told reporters on Wednesday following Mottaki’s statement.
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