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Michael Mann: â€œThe world powers have been pressing Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity and shut down an underground facility at Fordo that has been producing the materialâ€

18 June 2012 12:36 (UTC +04:00)

Moscow. Farid Akbarov â€“ APA. EU spokesman Michael Mann said the Iranian plan calls for discussing a broad range of issues far removed from the nuclear dispute. He said the six-nation group is â€œwilling to respondâ€ to the Iranian ideas but said they fall short of what he called the â€œconcreteâ€ proposals of the world powers.
â€œWe haven’t seen engagement on the Iranian side yet,â€ Mann said. â€œWe’re not prepared to talk for the sake of talking, we need to drive things forward. We know things aren’t going to happen overnight but we can at least get some momentum going if the Iranians are prepared to engage on the proposals we made.â€
The Moscow talks are scheduled to end Tuesday, but Mann said the world powers are â€œready to stay if there is something to talk about.â€
The world powers have been pressing Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, a level that some see as a short-step from the higher purity needed for nuclear weapons. The six-nation group also has been calling for Iran to remove stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium from its territory and shut down an underground facility at Fordo that has been producing the material.
In return, the world powers have offered to send Iran nuclear fuel for its medical research reactor and badly-needed spare parts for its aviation industry. Iranian leaders have dismissed such offers in the past as insufficient.