EU's Solana confirms Iran nuclear talks Thursday

HAMBURG, Germany, May 29 (Reuters) EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed today that he would meet Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani this week for the latest round of talks on Iran's nuclear programme.

''Yes, everything is on course. It's going to be Thursday, likely in Madrid, probably,'' Solana told reporters in Hamburg, Germany, where he was attending a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and Asian nations.

''I hope that we will be able to relaunch the dialogue.'' Previous meetings have failed to persuade Tehran to obey UN resolutions demanding that it halt uranium enrichment, which the West suspects is intended to produce a bomb.

Solana is empowered by the world's major powers the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany as well as the EU to explore the scope for formal negotiations on a package of economic, technological and political initiatives if Iran suspends its most sensitive nuclear work.

EU officials played down any expectation of a breakthrough at this week's two-day session, noting the United Nations nuclear watchdog had reported last week that Iran's programme is accelerating.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared last week that the Islamic Republic was close to achieving a complete nuclear capacity and vowed never to retreat. Iran insists its aim is a purely civilian one to generate electricity.

The Solana-Larijani meeting will be the first since the United States and Iran began an official dialogue in Baghdad yesterday the first such talks since Washington severed ties in the wake of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Both sides described the meeting on stabilising the situation in Iraq as positive, but they also excluded bilateral talks on the nuclear issue, leaving Solana as the only official channel for such talks.

Reuters AGL DB1348