Nuclear Disarmament, Nuclear Talk | featured news

Iran followed the United States on Sunday in denying that the two countries had scheduled direct bilateral negotiations on Iran's controversial nuclear program. The New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. administration officials, had said on Saturday that secret exchanges between U.S. and Iranian officials had yielded agreement "in principle" to hold one-on-one talks.

An Iranian envoy voiced hope on Monday that talks with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in mid-May would help resolve "outstanding issues", but he again ruled out any halt to Tehran's controversial uranium enrichment program.

After a 15-month break, Iran and the world's major powers are about to start a new round of nuclear talks. During the last round of negotiations held in January 2011, Iran and the world powers agreed on almost nothing. In recent weeks, negotiators struggled even to agree upon where they should meet for this new round - for a while, Iran held out for Baghdad as a venue.

The offer to restart talks came in a letter from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

A U.S. envoy will hold talks with North Korea on its nuclear program in Beijing next week, the first such negotiations since the death of the nation's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il.