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The European trio of Britain, France and Germany on Sunday officially informed Iran that they had agreed to resume bilateral nuclear talks in December, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
IRNA said the message was conveyed in a letter signed by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The letter was delivered to Javad Vaeedi, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), by ambassadors of the three European countries to Iran earlier in the day, the report said.
The letter came in response to a call made by Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and secretary of the SNSC, on Nov.6 in a letter to the three foreign ministers.
"Iran welcomes constructive and logical talks within the framework of respective conventions and regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Larijani said in the letter.
The European trio's message came three days after an IAEA Board of Governors meeting decided to postpone referral of Iran's case to the UN Security Council in order to offer more time for Tehran and the EU to discuss an alleged Russian proposal.
According to the proposal, Iran will be allowed to conduct uranium conversion activities on condition that the enrichment stage be moved to Russia, a measure keeping Tehran from obtaining nuclear technology crucial to making atom bombs.
On Sunday morning, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi called on the European Union (EU) to "be logical" to allow the two sides to resume nuclear talks within the framework of the IAEA, stressing that the talks "should not impose any regulations on Iran and should not aim at wasting time."
Asefi denied that Tehran had received any proposal from Russia, dismissing the alleged Russia suggestion as being fabricated by media.
However, Asefi reiterated that the whole process of Iran's uranium enrichment program must be performed in its own territory and the nuclear talks must be based on this condition. The EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Iran broke a suspension of uranium conversion, the first step toward uranium enrichment, which can be used to fuel nuclear reactors and as the explosive core of atom bombs.
In September, the IAEA urged Iran to re-suspend conversion activities or face a referral of its nuclear case to the Security Council.
The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge rejected by Tehran as politically motivated.
(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2005)
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