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Turkey backs dialog on Iran N-program

13 February 2011 00:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Turkish president has singled out dialog as the only solution to the West’s standoff with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program, APA reports quoting Press TV.

â€œTurkey is after concluding Iran’s nuclear issue though dialog and negotiation,â€ Abdullah Gul told IRNA on Saturday.

â€œIran is a signatory to the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] NPT and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and, for the same reason, Iran’s nuclear issue should be resolved through negotiation,â€ he added.

Tehran has repeatedly declared the civilian nature of its nuclear program, citing reports by the IAEA that the agency’s inspectors have found no evidence of divergence in Iran’s nuclear activities.

The West, however, in a politically-motivated move accuses Iran of seeking to develop a military nuclear program.

To solve the standoff, Iran issued a declaration with Turkey and Brazil on May 17, expressing readiness to swap 1,200 kg of its low-enriched uranium on Turkish soil with 20-percent-enriched nuclear fuel for use in a research reactor in Tehran.

The US and its European allies snubbed the declaration and pushed the United Nations Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran.

Tehran has warned that the West’s political approach may bring multifaceted non-nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 -- which comprises Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- into a deadlock.

Gul asserted that â€œTurkey would continue its facilitating efforts,â€ to enable negotiation on the nuclear program.

He made the remarks one day ahead of his first official visit to Tehran.

The three-day trip is aimed at expanding economic cooperation between Tehran and Ankara. One-hundred businessmen will be accompanying the Turkish president.

â€œDifferent issues, namely political, economic and cultural, will be discussed by the two sides in this trip,â€ Gul said.

â€œA great number of Turkey’s capital-wielders and merchants will accompany me on this trip and the creation of joint economic commission between the two countries in the course of the trip has also been predicted.â€