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Blair hopes Ahmadinejad will be 'willing partner' in nuclear deal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, June 27, IRNA
Iran Ahmadinejad-UK Blair
British Prime Minister Tony Blair Monday expressed hope that Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be a "willing partner" in the continuing EU negotiations to reach long term arrangements on his country's nuclear programme.

"We have tried to find a way through the impasse over nuclear capability and we have done it in good faith working with France and Germany and with the support of the United States," Blair told domestic and foreign journalists at his monthly press conference.

"We will continue to do it but we need a willing partner on the other side," he said in his first comments following Ahmadinejad's election last Friday.

The British premier said that it was "important that Iran's new president understands that obviously people will watch very closely with what is happening."
"Our view, very strongly, is that those obligations Iran has entered into have to be upheld and he will be making a serious mistake if he thought we were going to go soft on them because we are not," he said.

His comments came after Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirmed that the EU was currently working to meet its part of its commitment in reaching long term arrangements with Iran on its nuclear programme under last November's Paris Declaration.

"We are preparing detailed proposals," Straw said in reference to the latest commitment made to present Iran with a package of economic and political incentives by the end of July or early August.

"We are working on the basis that any incoming government in Iran will honour the commitments made by the outgoing government," he said.

"We look to the Iranian government under its new president-elect to honour those commitments," the Foreign Secretary said at a joint press conference in London with his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh.

In his first reaction to Ahmadinejad election last Saturday, Straw called on Iran to take "early steps to address international concerns about its nuclear programme and policies towards terrorism, human rights and the Middle East peace process."
"We will work hard, with our EU partners and bilaterally, to encourage action by Iran in these areas, so that Iran can return to its rightful place in the international community," he said.

HC/1416