BAKU, Feb 22: Talks with Iran on a Russian plan to resolve international tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme are not progressing easily, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here on Wednesday.

“The negotiations in Moscow are not going easily,” Putin said during a joint news conference in Baku with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Putin added, however: “We hope that we will be able to achieve a positive result.”

He said the Iranian negotiators had taken a ‘pause’ to hold further consultations in Tehran and added that he believed that the Russian proposal — to enrich uranium for use as nuclear fuel jointly with Iran at a site on Russian territory — would be acceptable for Iran.

“We think that the Russian suggestion for resolving the crisis through creation of a joint venture for the enrichment of uranium is acceptable for Iran,” Putin said.

The talks between Moscow and Tehran were due to resume on Thursday when the head of Russia’s atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, travels to Iran to hold further meetings with officials and to visit a nuclear power station Russia is building at Bushehr, in the south of the country. Putin’s comments came after Iranian officials said on Tuesday after two days of talks in Moscow that they were hopeful a Russian compromise to end the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme would bear fruit.

Chief Iranian negotiator Ali Hosseini-Tash said the discussions in Moscow had been positive and gave Tehran ‘hope of reaching an agreement’.—AFP