TEHRAN - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday that crisis nuclear talks with Britain, France and Germany were "so far not entirely satisfactory" but signalled that the negotiations were not completely deadlocked.
"The negotiations are so far not entirely satisfactory, but I don't think they have been negative either," Khatami told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
He was speaking as the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany were to meet in Geneva with Iran's top negotiator Hassan Rowhani for talks aimed at avoiding an escalation of Tehran's standoff with the West on its nuclear programme.
A first round of emergency talks was held in Brussels on Tuesday.
Khatami repeated that the meeting in Geneva was likely to be "final" -- in other words decisive on whether the negotiating process with the EU-3 would end or continue.
The so-called EU-3, representing the full 25-member EU, called the talks after a series of recent threats from Tehran to resume key nuclear activities, in breach of an accord to suspend them last November.
The EU has warned that it could refer Iran to the UN Security Council if nuclear fuel cycle -- at the centre of suspicions that Iran is seeking weapons -- are resumed.
But Iran is standing by what it says is its right to generate nuclear power.
"Given the sensistive situation in the region and also the good will that Iran has shown so far, I hope that our European friends are willing to solve the problem in a good way," Khatami said.
"I hope those friends come to reason and put their will into action, so that we can do something that is our obvious right," he added, referring to Iran's demand to restart uranium conversion activities -- a precursor to the ultra-sensitive process of enrichment -- at a plant in Isfahan.
"Otherwise and anyway we will restart this activity. This does not mean breaking the suspension of the enrichment," Khatami said, adding that "the suspension of enrichment will continue for now until we make a decision about it later on."