TEHRAN -- Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here on Friday that Iran is only “a few steps” away from resolving the nuclear issue as Iranian and EU officials on Friday held talks aimed at addressing the remaining differences over the country’s nuclear program.

Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana held a new round of nuclear talks in London on Friday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini had stated earlier that Jalili would be presenting new initiatives in his talks with Solana.
In a sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, Rafsanjani said, “Over the past few days, negotiations between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog have become more serious.”
He added, “Iran has moved along a peaceful path so far.”
Rafsanjani also warned the West to desist from making threats against the Islamic Republic.
“Now that Iran’s representative is holding talks with them (Western countries), they should not make threats because threats make Iran more determined.”
He underlined the importance of negotiations as the only way to find a solution to the nuclear dispute.
“They should hold talks to see where Iran deviated (from the peaceful pursuit of nuclear technology). Up to today, they have failed to find even one document proving Iran’s deviation,” Rafsanjani noted.
The former Iranian president added, “If their objective is resolving the nuclear issue, Iran will resolve it through negotiations, but if their objective is adventurism, they can rest assured that their fate in Iran will definitely be worse than (what happened to them) in other places they invaded.”
He asserted that Iran is committed to its agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“Since we have signed the (August) agreement, we have committed ourselves not to move toward nuclear weapons, and our actions in this issue are completely peaceful.”
-------- West should respect Palestinians’ rights
The Expediency Council chairman also said that the so-called peace conference in Annapolis is unlikely to reach its desired goals, adding, “As long as the Palestinians’ rights are not recognized, it will be impossible to resolve the Palestine crisis.”
“The Palestine problem is too complicated to be resolved through such a conference. Their (the Western powers’) main problem is over five million Palestinian refugees. What are they going to do with these people?”
Israel is seeking to prevent Palestine from establishing relations with the world “as an independent country with fixed borders,” he observed