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Iran's chief nuclear negotiator (L) attends a meeting on nuclear power on Iran in Geneva - Source: Reuters -
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Iran and world powers say they had productive talks to ease a stalemate over Iranian nuclear ambitions, agreeing on limited transparency gestures by Tehran and another meeting later this month.
Iran's pledge to give UN inspectors access in the coming weeks to a second uranium enrichment site that Western powers said was hidden for three years, and plans for follow-up talks, has bought Tehran a reprieve from tougher sanctions in the near future.
The US told Iran at the talks it must take concrete steps to prove it is not seeking nuclear arms, while France demanded Tehran open the newly declared site to UN inspectors.
"We began good talks in today's negotiations," Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told Iranian media.
"We have common view points with which we will deal in the continuing talks."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Washington afterwards, said the meeting had "opened the door".
"I think it was a productive day but the proof of that has not yet come to fruition so we will wait and continue to press our point of view and see what Iran decides to do."
US Under-secretary of State William Burns had met Jalili on the fringes of the so-called P5 1 talks, an encounter that underlined President Barack Obama's attempts to forge a closer relationship with the Islamic Republic.
Western suspicions that Iran is secretly developing a nuclear weapon were fuelled by Tehran's failure to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency in the past of nuclear research installations.
Time pressing
Iran declared construction of a second uranium enrichment facility in late September, deepening Western fears.
Uranium refined to a lower level is necessary for nuclear power stations but in higher state of enrichment for bombs.
The West wants Iran to allow immediate UN inspections at the plant and give access to documents and employees.
Western officials have spoken of the possibility of further sanctions on Iran, possible in the oil and gas industry.
A senior US official says the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, is expected to go to Iran this weekend.
