Iran nuclear talk ends without a breakthrough

 
Easing sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions 

on its nuclear programme were on the table in Almaty [Reuters]

World powers and Iran have ended their two-day meeting on Tehran's nuclear programme in the Kazakh city of Almaty without breakthrough, a Western official said.

Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said on Wednesday all sides agreed to meet in the same city on April 5-6 after first gathering their nuclear experts for consultations in Istanbul in March.

The six powers - France, Germany, the United States, China Russia and Britain - offered at the talks to lift some sanctions if Iran scaled back nuclear activity that the West fears could be used to build a bomb.

Tehran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, did not agree to do so and the sides did not appear any closer to an agreement to resolve a decade-old dispute that could lead to another war in the Middle East if diplomacy fails.

But Iran said the talks were a positive step in which the six powers tried to "get closer to our viewpoint".

The proposals had been discussed in various forms at three previous meetings in the past year.

"What we witnessed during the past eight months, they studied and reviewed what we offered and tabled in Moscow," Jalili told Al Jazeera.

"While we listened, their response was more realistic to what we had before, and it was closer to the expectation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

"Therefore, to it's own entity we considered it a positive step."

Benyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, called for "military sanctions" on the Islamic Republic.

"I believe it is incumbent upon the international community to intensify the sanctions and clarify that if Iran continues its programme, there will be military sanctions", Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

"I don't think there are any other means that will make Iran heed the international community's demands," he said, in his first remarks on the issue since the talks.

Source Al-Jazeera