TEHRAN: Iran said Friday that its top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Salona will hold talks on ending the atomic standoff on July 19 in Geneva, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“They are to continue their negotiations about the package on Saturday, July 19,” IRNA quoted Ahmad Khadem al-Melleh, spokesman for the secretariat of Iran’s supreme national security council, as saying.

World powers last month presented Iran with a package aimed at ending the five-year-old nuclear crisis, notably offering Tehran technological incentives in exchange for suspending the sensitive process of uranium enrichment.

“The trip of Dr. Jalili to Geneva is taking place after the world powers welcomed the continuation of the talks on common points in the two packages that have been proposed,” the spokesman added.

Iran has proposed its own package—a more all-embracing attempt to solve the problems of the world including the nuclear standoff—and has made much of the common ground between the two proposals.

But tensions over the nuclear standoff have again surged in the past two days after Iran test fired a broadside of missiles—including one whose range includes Israel—in war games that provoked international concern.

The United States and its regional ally Israel have never ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities and Tehran has warned of a ferocious response if it is attacked.

Tehran has already responded to the offer from world powers—Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States—and diplomats are analyzing what is said to be a complex answer.

The French foreign ministry, however, has confirmed that Iran does not say in its response that it is prepared to suspend uranium enrichment, which world powers said they fear could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Iran rejects the Western accusations and insists its nuclear program is aimed solely at generating energy for a growing population whose fossil fuel reserves will eventually run out.

Iranian leaders including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Kha-menei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have repeatedly vowed that Iran will never give in to the demands of the West.

Solana, who presented the package in Tehran on behalf of the six world powers last month, has described the response as a “complicated and difficult letter that must be thoroughly analyzed.”
-- AFP