Iran has 'new initatives' for P5+1

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TEHRAN, April 11 (UPI) -- Iran announced Wednesday it was headed to multilateral nuclear negotiations in Turkey with "new initiatives" but gave few specifics.

Nuclear negotiations among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- along with Germany are scheduled for Istanbul.

Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying Tehran was ready for "successful talks on cooperation."

"Iran's representatives will participate in the negotiations with new initiatives and we hope that the P5+1 countries will also enter talks with constructive approaches," he said.

He didn't offer specifics about the new initiatives.

Iran is accused of working on the technology needed to produce a nuclear weapon. White House spokesman Jay Carney said this week that regardless of what Iran says about its intentions, nobody "has faith in those assurances."

Jalili said the "language of threat and pressure against the Iranian nation has never yielded results but will lead to more seriousness in the attitude of the Iranian nation."

Tehran in the past insisted there would be no preconditions to multilateral nuclear negotiations.

Iran this week announced it was imposing "counter-sanctions" on the European Union by cutting oil sales to some members.