October 13, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 30, 1428

TEHRAN, Oct 12: Iran is studying a Swiss proposal to facilitate talks between Tehran and the UN atomic watchdog over the Islamic republic’s controversial nuclear programme, the ISNA news agency reported on Friday.

“Switzerland has offered a plan for the continuation of negotiations with the (International Atomic Energy) agency ... our country’s officials are studying this proposal as a positive one,” parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel said.

“Compared to some other plans, from Iran’s point of view this proposal can be studied and followed up,” he said. He gave no details of the proposal or indicated if it was indeed new.

In May, Tehran said it rejected as unacceptable a “Swiss plan” for Iran to freeze its work on sensitive nuclear activities in return for the world powers to halt UN sanctions imposed over its atomic agenda.

Iran and the IAEA are currently in talks to clarify the agency’s key questions about Tehran’s uranium enrichment activity.—AFP