Iran, powers prepare for high-stakes nuclear talks

Iran and the six world powers prepared on Friday for rare talks aimed at easing fears that a deepening dispute over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program could plunge the Middle East into a new war.   

Officials from Iran and the six major powers arrived in Istanbul ahead of Saturday's bid to restart stalled diplomacy following months of soaring tension and persistent speculation that Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites.   

The meeting is widely seen as a chance for the powers - the United States, France, Russia, China, Britain and Germany - and Iran to halt a downward diplomatic spiral and start to seek ways out of years of deadlock.   

The West accuses Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability and Israel has hinted at pre-emptive military strikes to prevent its arch foe from obtaining such arms.   

Iran, which has come under increasingly tough Western sanctions targeting its oil exports, says its nuclear programme is peaceful and has repeatedly ruled out suspending it.   

Diplomats and analysts played down any expectations of a major breakthrough in the first round of discussions, but said the meeting may pave the ground for further negotiations aimed at resolving the decade-long row.   

Western officials have made clear their immediate priority is to convince Tehran to cease the higher-grade uranium enrichment it started in 2010. Iran has since sharply expanded that work, shortening the time it would need for any weapons "break out".   

Iran has signaled some flexibility over halting this work - refining uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent compared with the 5 percent level required for power plants - but also suggests it is not ready to do so yet.   

The talks "will begin a very complex negotiation, and for several months diplomacy will take some pressure off oil prices and help keep the chance of Israeli strikes very low," said Cliff Kupchan, a Middle East analyst at the Eurasia Group.   

But in the end, Kupchan said renewed diplomacy was unlikely to yield a resolution to the crisis, which has helped push global oil prices higher this year.   

Reuters