Iran was not to blame for the disappointment expressed by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana after key talks in London on the nuclear crisis, chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said yesterday.
"The fact is that we defended the Iranian nation's rights and stressed fulfilling our duties and that the Iranian nation will not accept anything that goes beyond the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," he said.
"If some people have become disappointed because they cannot deprive Iran of its natural rights then this is another matter," Jalili told reporters after arriving back in Tehran.
Solana said on Friday he was "disappointed" after the last-ditch talks in London failed to produce a breakthrough ahead of a key EU report on Iran's controversial nuclear drive.
Solana's advisor was due to brief the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany -- the six powers involved in the dossier on Iran's controversial nuclear program -- whose representatives were scheduled to meet in Paris yesterday.
Jalili said the Iranian side had put forward three "good ideas" to the Europeans in the talks, adding that Solana had demanded such a move from Tehran in past negotiations.
These ideas included "joint cooperation for disarmament," the "peaceful use of nuclear energy" and the "prevention of the expansion of nuclear defense proliferation," he said.
The proposals appeared to be in line with past calls by Tehran on the West to destroy their own nuclear arsenals to help forge a breakthrough in the nuclear crisis.
"This cooperation was part of Mr Solana's plan set out in the Lisbon meeting and he should have been more hopeful," said Jalili.
Solana and Jalili's predecessor Ali Larijani met in Lisbon in June, a meeting that both men later hailed as constructive -- a phrase conspicuously lacking after the talks in London.
Iranian officials have repeatedly emphasized they have no intention of suspending uranium enrichment work, the main demand of the West to end the nuclear crisis.
The EU foreign policy chief made no attempt to hide his frustration after the five hours of discussions.
"I have to admit that after five hours of meetings I expected more, and therefore I am disappointed," Solana said.
"There was not enough new in order not to be disappointed," Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said. "It was not what he expected."
Jalili, by contrast, had described the talks in London as "good" although he went on to defiantly defend Iran's nuclear rights at a press conference in the British capital.
Solana must report to the UN Security Council in the next days on Tehran's willingness to comply with the council's demand to freeze uranium enrichment.
The US, which accuses Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as cover for a drive to develop an atomic bomb, wants the UN to impose a third set of sanctions against Iran to punish its defiance.
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