Merkel: Iran threat to the world, Ashton to meet Jalili on Tuesday

A political solution in the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme is still possible, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, but she added Tehran posed a threat not just to Israel but to the whole world.
    
"I support a political solution ... and I believe that we are not at the point where the search for political solutions has been exhausted," she told a news conference in Berlin.
   
The European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Ashton said on Monday.

Ashton will meet Jalili in follow-up talks to negotiations on Iran's atomic program, a spokeswoman for Ashton said on Monday.
   
The meeting is "part of continuing efforts to engage with Iran", following talks between world powers and Iran in Moscow in June which failed to secure a breakthrough in the dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.
   
"While it is not a formal negotiating round, the meeting will be an opportunity to stress once again to Iran the need for an urgent and meaningful confidence-building step" and to show more flexibility with proposals put forward by world powers in earlier talks in Baghdad, the spokeswoman said.


REUTERS