(Financial Times-UK) James Blitz - After two days of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Iran has told the U.S. and five other world powers that it is prepared to hold a couple more meetings in March and April to try to resolve international concerns that it wants a nuclear bomb. Do more meetings just mean stalling for time? In Geneva in 2009 and in Istanbul last April, Iran made similar declarations, giving the green light for further talks on confidence-building measures that went nowhere. It was the six world powers that came up with the compromises at Almaty - not Iran. They no longer seek complete closure of the underground Fordow enrichment plant, just a commitment to "reduce the readiness" of the plant. Meanwhile, Iran is steadily building up nuclear capability on the ground and the timescale has shortened within which a deal must be reached if this epic diplomatic stand-off is not to end in war.
2013-03-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive