World powers agree to reopen talks with Iran

Iran plans to open Parchin, a key military base, to nuclear inspectors and seeks a new date for proposed talks with world powers. View more photos of Iran’s quest to possess nuclear technology.

By Joby Warrick and Thomas Erdbrink,
WashPost
Tuesday, March 6, 9:04 AM

The United States and five other countries have agreed to resume negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, the European Union informed Iranian officials Tuesday, a development that rekindled hopes for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

“I have offered to resume talks with Iran on the nuclear issue,” E.U. chief diplomat Catherine Ashton announced in a statement broadcast from the alliance’s Brussels headquarters. “We hope that Iran will now enter a sustained process of constructive dialogue which will deliver real progress.”

But Ashton warned in a letter to the Iranians that they must “engage seriously and without preconditions,” wording that reflected Western concerns that Iran may seek to use negotiations to divide its adversaries and buy more time to build up its enriched uranium stockpile.

“Our overall goal remains a comprehensive negotiated, long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” Ashton wrote in the letter to Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

(More here.)