Strasbourg, 16/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 February, the Arab language television channel Al-Alam announced that Iran had replied to the letter, which was sent to it in October by the EU high representative, on resuming negotiations on its nuclear programme. No further details were provided with regard to the date the reply letter was sent or with regard to the location or date for the resumption of negotiations. The official Iranian press agency IRNA explained that in response to the letter sent by Catherine Ashton, Saïd Jalili, the head of Iran's negotiating team, had announced that the Islamic Republic was prepared to resume negotiations on the nuclear question with the major global powers. He informed Ashton that “the success of the next negotiations depends on obtaining a constructive response from the G5+1 (United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, Russia and the US)”.
The spokesperson for the high representative, Maja Kocijancic, confirmed to EUROPE that they had received a letter on Wednesday and explained: “We will be examining this letter carefully in collaboration with our 3+3 partners.” On the same day, Iran announced that it had made significant progress in its nuclear programme and had developed a more efficient centrifugal mechanism and 20% enriched fuel production. (CG/transl.fl)