ISTANBUL
-- World powers and Iran launched a new round of negotiations in
Istanbul on Saturday, aiming to resolve a long-standing dispute over
Tehran's nuclear program that threatens to spark a new war in the Middle
East.
"Delegates have gone in... plenary is just getting started," a diplomat close to the negotiations said.
Diplomats say the round, the first in 15 months, is unlikely to result
in a major breakthrough but offers a chance to resume dialogue and
dampen speculation that Israel might launch military strikes to prevent
its arch enemy from acquiring nuclear arms.
Global fuel prices have risen this year amid deepening tensions over
the nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes.
Iran must show in Istanbul that it is willing to enter "serious
engagement", one senior diplomat said, suggesting Saturday's discussions
were unlikely to go into detailed issues.
"My
tip is to set your sights low," the diplomat said. "It is not part of
our game plan ... to lay out a long list of specific demands and
conditions. They know what we think about all these things."
Iran
says it will propose "new initiatives" in Istanbul, but it is unclear
whether this means it is now prepared to discuss curbs to its uranium
enrichment program, which the West suspects has military links.
"Iran
is sending signals they want a serious and constructive meeting,"
another diplomat said before the meeting between Iran and the United
States, France, Russia, China, Germany and Britain and their main
representative, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
MSNBC's
Richard Lui speaks with former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg
about North Korea's suspected plans for a new nuclear test, and the
deployment of a second U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf ahead
of nuclear talks with Iran.
Both sides say they are ready at
the meeting to work towards resolving the deepening dispute over the
nuclear program that Iran says has purely peaceful purposes.
"For
their own reasons, each side wants to give diplomacy a chance at this
point, to start a process rather than to force a quick fix," said
analyst Michael Adler at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars.
The West accuses Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear
weapons capability. Israel - believed to be the only Middle East state
with an atomic arsenal - sees Iran's atomic plans as a threat to its
existence. Iran has threatened to retaliate for any attack by closing a
major oil shipping route.
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