EU denies holding new talks with Iran

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran said on Wednesday, January 18 it was in touch with big powers to hold fresh talks soon but the European Union denied it, with Britain saying Tehran had yet to show willingness for negotiations on its disputed nuclear work without preconditions.

A year after the last talks collapsed, tensions are rising with the United States and EU preparing to embargo Iran's lifeblood oil industry over its refusal to suspend a nuclear program that the West suspects is meant to develop atom bombs.

Iranian politicians said U.S. President Barack Obama had expressed readiness to negotiate in a letter to Tehran, a step that might relieve tensions behind several oil price spikes and growing fears of military conflict in the Gulf.

"Negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters during a visit to Turkey.

"Most probably, I am not sure yet, the venue will be Istanbul. The day is not yet settled, but it will be soon."

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the six powers, denied there were any fresh discussions with the Islamic Republic to organize a meeting.

"There are no negotiations under way on new talks," he said in Brussels. "We are still waiting for Iran to respond to the substantive proposals the High Representative (Ashton) made in her letter from October," according to Reuters.