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Iran nuclear program talks with EU to be held May 31 - official

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The talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator and the European Union's foreign policy chief will be held on May 31, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday.
TEHRAN, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - The talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator and the European Union's foreign policy chief will be held on May 31, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday.

Hosseini made this statement several hours after he announced that the meeting between Ali Larijani and the EU's Javier Solana to discuss the prospect of restarting talks on Iran's controversial nuclear program had been postponed.

"Considering the latest accords between Larijani and Solana, the talks are scheduled for May 31," Hosseini said, adding that the place of the meeting would be determined during bilateral consultations.

Since Iran resumed uranium enrichment in January 2006, the country has been the focus of international concerns, as some Western countries, particularly the U.S., suspect Tehran is pursuing a covert weapons program. But Tehran has consistently claimed it needs nuclear power for civilian power generation and is fully entitled to its own nuclear program.

On Wednesday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), presented a report that said Iran has continued to ignore the demands of the UN Security Council to halt its uranium enrichment and has continued working on nuclear projects.

The report could trigger a new wave of sanctions against Iran, which will be the third since penalties were first introduced against it in December 2006.

On April 19, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran had mastered industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel, giving up a research-level program. Recent reports said Tehran was already running 1,600 uranium enrichment centrifuges in its Natanz underground complex.

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