Iran, world powers hold tough talks

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Iran and world powers sat down on Saturday for their first meeting in 15 months hoping to ease tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme, but with mutual mistrust and tough talk making a major breakthrough look unlikely.

According to officials close to the negotiations between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany (the P5+1), the most that can be hoped for is an agreement to hold more detailed discussions in a few weeks.

"We don't expect to get a lot of detail ... but it will be about possibly meeting again in four to six weeks time if we can, when we will get into that detail," one diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, also in Istanbul, said "much depends on what Iran is putting on the table today." Her spokesman added that the talks on Saturday began in a ‘positive atmosphere’ with a ‘desire for substantive progress.’

"The time for tactical games is long over," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement issued in Berlin, saying the talks would be ‘anything but easy.’

Representing Washington was Wendy Sherman, undersecretary for political affairs. Ma Zhaoxu, assistant foreign minister, led the Chinese delegation, while Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov headed Moscow's team.

Sources in the Iranian delegation, led by Saeed Jalili, said as he went into the talks that they would be "worthy of the Iranian people." There would be a morning and an afternoon session as well as talks over lunch, his delegation said.

The main concern of the international community, particularly for Iran's arch foe Israel, is Tehran's growing capacity to enrich uranium, which can be used in power generation and other peaceful uses but, when purified further, for a nuclear weapon.

Of particular worry is the formerly secret Fordo site in a mountain bunker near the holy city of Qom, currently enriching to 20-per cent purity but which experts say could be reconfigured to produce 90-per cent weapons grade material.

Fordo's expansion, plus a major UN atomic agency report in November on alleged "weaponisation" efforts, have led to tighter EU and US sanctions on Iran's oil sector due to bite this summer and talk of Israeli military strikes.

Following earlier false starts, Western governments - and in particular US President Barack Obama as he seeks re-election this November - are wary of being accused of being duped by empty Iranian promises that just buy Tehran more time.

Obama, who has warned against ‘loose talk’ of war, said last month that "both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognise that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."

"I think that the Israeli government recognises that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff."

Highlighting the deep mistrust and the major differences, a source close to the Iranian delegation said on Friday that recent Western comments did not ‘give us much hope’ and were ‘disappointing and discouraging.’

The West has stressed the need for Iranian ‘seriousness’, with Group of Eight (G8) foreign ministers on Thursday highlighting Tehran's "persistent failure to comply with its obligations."

"If Iran turns up for the meeting in the same spirit of 'Istanbul I', we're not going to get very far," one P5+1 source said, referring to the last stab at talks in this Turkish city in January 2011.

"We haven't come here to talk about lifting sanctions."

US media reports meanwhile have suggested that the P5+1 want Iran to halt enrichment of uranium to purities of 20 per cent, shutter Fordo and send Tehran's stockpiles of enriched uranium abroad.

Iran meanwhile has promised to present ‘new initiatives’, but diplomats said it was unclear what these were or whether they would be enough to convince the P5+1 that further negotiations, possibly in Baghdad in May, would be worth it.

The world powers also want Iran to grant the International Atomic Energy Agency greater access to ease fears that it might have covert facilities, and to answer accusations made in the IAEA's November report.

But comments from Iran, most notably from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, underline that Tehran will not consent to anything that infringes on its right to peaceful nuclear activities without promises that sanctions will be lifted.

"Iran will ultimately insist upon a guarantee ... that it has the right to enrich uranium," Mark Hibbs, analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said ahead of the talks.

"Iran's minimum expectation from the P5+1 is that they seek Iran's trust by cancelling all illegal resolutions and sanctions as the first step," hardline Iranian daily Kayhan said on Saturday.