The EU's chief diplomat welcomes Tehran’s recent openings. Hillary Clinton says letter is "what we expected." But the British Foreign Secretary fears a "cold war" in the Middle East. Iranian warships in the Mediterranean, while Ahmadinejad talks about ties between nations on ethical and humanitarian issues.

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The U.S. and European Union express cautious optimism about the opening of Tehran, ready to resume talks on Iran's nuclear program. However, the British Foreign Minister William Hague warns that the ayatollahs' nuclear ambitions could plunge the Middle East into "a new Cold War", because "other nations" in the region "want to adopt" the same technology, following the news, today, of Iranian warships in the Mediterranean.

The official IRNA news agency reported the statement of Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, commander of the Iranian navy, that a cruiser and a tanker passed - for the second time in a year - the Strait of Suez and entered the Mediterranean. The warships are directed to the Syrian coast to "show the power of the Islamic Republic" and at the same time, "bring a message of peace and friendship" in the region.

On the nuclear front, meanwhile, the U.S. and the EU welcome the willingness of Iran to resume talks. For Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, the letter sent by Tehran - in reply to a letter from the Head of European diplomacy Catherine Ashton last October - is "what we expected" for some time. Ashton confirms "caution" but does not hide "optimism" for a resumption of talks.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned to Tehran at the end of the trilateral summit with Pakistan and Afghanistan. On the sidelines of the summit, he talked about nuclear power, noting that "the atomic bomb should have been excluded from global political constraints" because "it has never made anyone stronger than others and will never be used." And the Islamic Republic, he added, is creating ties with other nations "going beyond economic issues and those related to the bomb", but focusing on " humanitarian, historical and cultural issues."

Talks on Iran's nuclear program - which covers the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - were interrupted last year. Tehran wants to expand the table of discussions with other issues and insists its program is "peaceful" and not intended to build the atomic bomb. A suspicion, however, nourished by the United States and the West, which have promoted economic sanctions, while Israel insists on the necessity of an attack to disrupt the "threat" from Iran.

 

• IRAN
• EU
• US
• nuclear
• program
• mediterranean
• threat