President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was satisfied with the outcome of nuclear talks in Geneva.
“Negotiations are in general always a step forward and Saturday’s meeting (in Geneva) in particular was part of this forward-moving development,“ IRNA quoted the president as saying on the sidelines of the Cabinet session in Tehran on Sunday.
For the first time in almost three decades, the two arch-foes Iran and the United States held negotiations together with the other four veto powers plus Germany (5+1).
ISNA reported on Saturday that Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, wants the US to stay in the nuclear talks--scheduled for early next month--to achieve “more effective results“ for settling both the nuclear as well as regional disputes.
At Saturday’s discussions in the Swiss city, the six powers gave the Islamic Republic two weeks to answer calls to rein in its nuclear activities or face tougher sanctions after talks ended in stalemate despite unprecedented US participation.
“Yesterday’s negotiation is regarded as one of these forward-moving negotiations,“ Ahmadinejad said.
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said after some six hours of talks in Geneva he hoped for a clear answer from Tehran in about two weeks to an offer of trade and technical incentives to halt uranium enrichment. Envoys from the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain attended the Geneva meeting.
Diplomats said the presence of senior US envoy William Burns underlined the unity of major powers in the dispute, which has pushed up oil prices to record levels.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki described the US decision to attend the meeting in Geneva as a “positive procedural step“, which he hoped would lead to mutually beneficial results.
“This was an opportunity for America to know the views of the Islamic Republic,“ he said.

(See Page Iranica)

Iran’s six-member team ranked fifth in the 49th World Mathematics Olympiad held in Madrid, Spain, during July 10-20.
The Iranian team grabbed one gold and five silver medals in the event, Fars News Agency reported.
Kasra Ahmadi grabbed the gold, Milad Bakhshizadeh, Amir Sepehri, Mohammad Jahan-Goshaei, Nima Hamidi and Mohammad Mehdi Yazdi received silver medals.
China, Russia, the US and South Korea occupied the top four places respectively.
A total of 624 high school students from 104 countries attended the Olympiad; the last such event was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in July 2007.
Russia, China and Vietnam ranked first to third in the 48th World Mathematics Olympiad in Hanoi while Iran ranked 12th.
Participating in the Olympiads since 1985, Iran ranked first in the 39th such event.
Meanwhile, a number of Iranian teams reached the final stage of RoboCup-2008 Suzhou competitions in China.
Iranian teams from Sharif University of Technology, Qazvin Islamic Azad University, Khajeh Nasireddin Toosi University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology and Isfahan University reached the final stage of the tournament.
Teams from 30 countries took part in the 12th RoboCup competitions that were held from July 14- 20 in Suzhou, China.
Some 184 Iranian university students showcased their scientific and technical capabilities during the seven-day event.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met on Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the start of a European and Mideast trip aimed at bolstering his foreign policy and national security credentials.
The meeting, which lasted nearly two hours and included lunch at the presidential palace in Kabul, covered a range of issues including terrorism and Afghanistan’s huge narcotics trade, Karzai’s office said in a statement, Alalam reported.
The statement said the talks also touched on obstacles to Afghanistan’s reconstruction after decades of war and amid a deadly insurgency by Taliban and other extremists.
Obama has made Afghanistan a key focus of his foreign policy pledges, saying it--not Iraq--should be the focus of the so-called “war on terror“ and promising to send more troops to battle insurgents here, if elected.
He has been critical of Karzai’s government, telling CNN it had “not gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan and (the) government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence.“
“So, there are a lot of problems there,“ Obama said in an interview with CNN earlier this month.
His comments drew immediate fire from Republicans, who accused him of insulting a key US “war on terror“ ally and ignoring multiple assassination attempts against Karzai.
On Sunday, Obama and the other senators reaffirmed bipartisan support for Afghanistan, the statement from Karzai’s office said.
Obama has accused the Bush administration of allowing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup by diverting vital US forces to the war in Iraq.
He has said that if he wins the White House in November, he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan, while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.

African Union commission chief, Jean Ping, expressed hope on Sunday that Zimbabwe’s ruling party and the opposition would sign a deal within 24 hours to begin full-fledged talks.
Ping met President Robert Mugabe, opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) chief, Morgan Tsvangirai, and a separate MDC faction on Saturday to prop up efforts to solve the country’s political crisis, an AU commission spokesman told AFP.
“He (Ping) is hopeful that a memorandum of understanding, which will outline the talks agenda and ground rules, will be signed tomorrow (Monday) with the MDC being part of it. Tsvangirai has given assurance of this,“ said Elghassim Wane.
The memorandum of understanding was to be signed last Wednesday, but Tsvangirai backed out as he pushed for other players to be brought into a mediation process led by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
The MDC and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF began preliminary talks last week aimed at establishing a framework for substantive negotiations.
“Progress is definitely being made towards a resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe,“ an AU official said on condition of anonymity.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told BBC on Sunday that Tsvangirai is willing to meet Mugabe in South Africa.
“He told me that his team will be going to Pretoria for these preliminary talks. Depending on how they progress, he’s ready and willing to meet with Mr. Mugabe out there in Pretoria.“
Zimbabwe’s political crisis deepened last month when Mugabe defied international calls to postpone a presidential runoff marred by widespread violence and was predictably reelected by a landslide.