PARIS (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Monday said he was not too optimistic about prospects for a breakthrough with Iran on its nuclear program, saying: “It’s difficult.”

Solana said he hoped to meet soon with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator after Tehran on Friday delivered its response to a letter by the major powers on ending the nuclear standoff.
“I hope that we will be able to continue the dialogue in the coming weeks.... We’ll see, but I don’t want to give the impression of being too optimistic,” Solana told reporters on the sidelines of an EU-NATO meeting in Paris.
“It’s difficult,” he said, describing the response from Tehran as a “complicated and difficult letter that must be thoroughly analyzed.”
Asked when he planned to meet with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Solana said “I hope before the end of the month.”
He added that world powers were still in talks about Iran’s response to the package presented by permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he had read an “outline” of the response and that he did not hold out much hope of a breakthrough.
“I don’t think that it provides great hope. But it gives a little bit of hope,” Kouchner said.
Solana presented the offer during talks with Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki on June 14 and held a long phone conversation with Jalili on Friday.
Jalili has said his country submitted a “constructive and creative” response with “a focus on common ground,” but he did not elaborate on the contents.
Iran on Saturday offered to negotiate on its nuclear drive but without a freeze on uranium enrichment, in its first comments since responding to the package.