TEHRAN, Jan. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Sunday urged the European Union (EU) not to make "haste decision" to refer Iran's nuclear case to the UN Security Council, stressing that Tehran regards the UN nuclear watchdog as the sole authoritative body to solve the issue.

    "The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the only body that is capable of solving the Iranian nuclear issue, and we hope that the EU will not make haste decision," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi told a weekly news briefing.  

    Iran leaves the door open for negotiations, and has been prepared to secure its nuclear rights through talks with the EU, Asefi said.

    Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reiterated that Iran would suspend all confidence-building measures if its nuclear file was sent to the Security Council.

    "Our position is very clear. We will have to halt all voluntary cooperative measures if hauled to the UN Security Council,"Mottaki told a press conference.

    Iran announced earlier Sunday that a new round of nuclear talks between Iran and the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany would be held in Brussels on Monday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

    The EU trio cancelled nuclear talks scheduled for Jan. 18 with Iran and called for an emergency meeting of IAEA's board of governors on Feb. 2 to decide whether to refer Iran to the Security Council after Tehran resumed nuclear fuel research on Jan.10, escalating dispute over its nuclear program.

    Iran has said it will not be intimidated by a referral, which it warned would lead to a resumption of sensitive uranium enrichment at the industrial level.

    However, Tehran regarded as positive a Russian compromise proposal to set up a joint venture in Russia to enrich uranium for Iran so as to break the deadlock between Iran's insistence on its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy and the Western suspicion that Iran could make nuclear weapons by mastery of uranium enrichment technology.

    Iran has rejected the U.S. charge of seeking nuclear weapons but vowed never to give up its legal right to nuclear technology for fully peaceful purposes.  Enditem