Iran’s new President Hassan Rowhani said he was “seriously determined” to resolve a dispute with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, Reuters quoted him as saying.

Rowhani said he was ready to enter “serious and substantive” negotiations on the issue.

A solution could be reached “solely through talks, not threats,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rowhani said there could be no surrender of the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy that Iran claims under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is a national issue... we will not give up the rights of the Iranian people,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported him as saying.  “We will preserve our rights based on the international regulations.”

The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief urged Rowhani to schedule “meaningful talks” on the issue as soon as possible.

Catherine Ashton called on Rowhani “to seek a swift resolution to serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities,” the Associated Press (AP) quoted spokesman Michael Mann as saying.

Ashton and the group of nations negotiating with Iran - the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany - “stand ready to continue talks to find a resolution as quickly as possible,” Mann added.

Iran has long rejected Western suspicions that its nuclear program is aimed at developing atomic weapons, saying it is only for peaceful purposes.

Since 2012, four rounds of talks have failed to make any significant progress.

 

Source: Al Arabiya; Reuters, AFP; AP