MOSCOW, Nov 11: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Saturday for `goodwill’ on all sides as President Vladimir Putin met Iran's top nuclear negotiator for talks on Tehran's nuclear program.

Speaking after the talks between Mr Putin and Ali Larijani, the Russian minister said Iran would continue to study proposals from the six world powers seeking to dissuade it from pursuing sensitive nuclear research.

“Iran has responded to these proposals and we think that in showing its good will, there is a possibility, beginning with the proposals of the Six and taking Iran's response into account, to find an acceptable basis for talks to restart.” In the days ahead, `we will continue our contacts with the Six, which have proposed to Iran ideas which serve as the basis for the beginning of negotiations’, Interfax quoted the Russian minister as saying.

Mr Lavrov was referring to proposals by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany -- the Six -- which offer Iran economic enticements in exchange for a suspension of its nuclear program.

The talks at Mr Putin's country retreat outside Moscow follow Mr Larijani's warning on the opening day of his Moscow visit that a draft UN sanctions resolution by European negotiators could make Iran reconsider its cooperation with UN nuclear monitors.

Both Iran and Russia `proceed from the position that a decision on Iran's nuclear program is possible only through the process of negotiations’, Mr Larijani had told reporters after nearly six hours of talks with Russian Security Council head Igor Ivanov. —AFP