 |
Turkey says Iran may talk with EU in September
Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke after meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. He said Mottaki "confirmed the meeting might take place after Ramadan."
"This is positive momentum," Davutoğlu said, expressing Turkey's readiness to host the meeting if needed.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, had sent a letter to EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, detailing Tehran's conditions for the talks early July.
"The Jalili-Ashton meeting is overdue," Davutoğlu said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has set three conditions for an eventual resumption of talks, saying countries who want to participate should make clear whether they oppose Israel's nuclear arsenal, whether they support the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and whether they want to be friends or enemies with Iran. But he said participation in the talks was not contingent on the answers.
Jalili's letter had reiterated those three points and stressed that the EU must make it clear whether the talks will be aimed at "interaction and cooperation, or hostility and confrontation."
The West accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful electricity production.
The U.N. imposed tougher sanctions on Iran last month after failing to get the country to accept a U.N.-drafted plan to swap its low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched uranium in the form of fuel rods Iran needs for a medical research reactor. The EU has also imposed new sanctions.
At the time, the swap would have significantly reduced Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpile and delayed any weapons-making capabilities.
Instead, Iran opted for a plan backed by Turkey and Brazil that included the uranium-for-rods exchange but didn't mandate a halt on Iran's enrichment process and fell short of U.N. demands.
Turkey and Brazil on Sunday expressed support for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| BÜLENT KENEŞ |  |
||
| What befell Niyazi-i Misri in the past is happening to Fethullah Gülen now | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| EKREM DUMANLI |  |
||
| When a call for fairness and reason finds acceptance | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| ŞAHİN ALPAY |  |
||
| Uludere, test case for democracy in Turkey | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| Taking lessons from previous experiences with the military | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| ÖMER TAŞPINAR |  |
||
| A new phase in Syria? | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| İHSAN DAĞI |  |
||
| Turkish foreign policy: Time for a re-evaluation | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
