By NNN-KUNA,
Brussels : European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana has briefed the EU Foreign Ministers’ Council here on his meeting with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jallili in Geneva last Saturday.
“We gave our answers to the Iranians and we will see if the Iranians have an answer for us in the next few weeks. We expect an answer based on constructive optimism. We have to have a clear and simple answer,” Solana told a press conference Tuesday.
The question which has to be answered, he said, “is how we can start on the second phase, which is the preparation for negotiations.
“Up to now we were at a stage where we discussed various things, but now we have to start focusing things and we have to start pre-negotiations as early as possible and there are issues which have to be settled before that,” he added.
Solana visited Tehran on June 14 to present a new package of incentives on behalf of the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany (5 1) which offers trade and economic benefits in exchange for a halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment activity.
Iran has made its own package of offer and wants negotiations on the basis of common areas in the two packages.