TEHRAN, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran's foreign minister said here Wednesday that Egypt has welcomed Tehran's proposal for Cairo to host the next round of the nuclear talks between the Islamic republic and the world powers, Press TV reported.
Making the remarks after a cabinet meeting, Ali-Akbar Salehi said that Egypt is now consulting with the P5+1, including Britain, France, Russia, the United States, China, plus Germany, for hosting the meeting.
Salehi rejected media claims about Iran's dissatisfaction with Turkey's hosting of the talks, stating that "Turkey made great efforts as the previous host of the negotiations and held them in very good ways."
Salehi said that other countries, like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Sweden and Switzerland, would also like to host the talks between Iran and the P5+1, the official IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who is also secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), has come to the conclusion that if the nuclear talks are held in different countries, it would have some affirmative international results, Salehi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
So far, the time and venue about the next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 over the former's nuclear standoff have not been finalized, he added.
The fail of the recent IAEA-Iran talks to reach an agreement on the investigation of the disputed nuclear program has dimmed the future negotiations between Iran and P5+1 countries, which were supposed to resume soon.
The negotiations have already been held back by deep-rooted differences, with Iran demanding the West to dismantle tough sanctions that have made it hard for Tehran to sell its crude in the global market.
The West, meanwhile, wants Tehran to give up its nuclear enrichment program which Iran has insisted to be peaceful and legitimate. The great progress Iran made on uranium enrichment in 2012 was widely recognized as both the counterattack against the West's crippling policy, and its bargaining chips on the negotiation table.
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