Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Iran has agreed to hold talks with six major powers about its atomic program in January but the date and venue has yet to be decided, the country's top nuclear negotiator said on Friday, Reuters reported.

The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili said that Tehran welcomes the readiness of the six major world powers to hold constructive talks with Iran.

"We have accepted that these talks should be held in January, but until now, the details have not been finalized," he said during a trip to India.

Jalili also said that the U.S. cannot impose its arbitrary "less rights and more obligations" model on the Iranian nation in the nuclear issue, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

He stated that to serve its interests not only does the U.S. violate the rights of others, but also contradicts its claims about democracy and free trade by meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and the imposition of unilateral sanctions.

The six powers - the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China - have failed to achieve a breakthrough in three rounds of talks since April. But neither side has been willing to break off totally, partly because of concern this could lead to war if Israel attacked its arch-foe.

The powers last met Iran for talks in Moscow. That meeting was followed by low-level technical talks in Istanbul.

The next talks would be the first high-level negotiations over Iran's nuclear program since June, offering at least the prospect of a thaw in a standoff that has grown increasingly tense in recent months.

The six powers want to rein in Iran's uranium enrichment program to ensure it is geared only for civilian energy, through a mix of diplomacy and sanctions. Iran denies Western assertions it is seeking nuclear weapons capability.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed the West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressure merely consolidate the Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.