Iran Says It Will Open Enrichment Plant To Inspectors

Iran has pledged to open its recently revealed uranium enrichment plant to U.N. inspectors — perhaps in the next few weeks — a senior European envoy said Thursday after a seven-nation meeting outside Geneva.

Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official, also confirmed that Iran and six world powers, including the United States, will hold a new set of talks this month on international concerns about Tehran's nuclear program and other issues raised by the Islamic republic.

The U.S. and Iran sat down for bilateral talks during a break at Thursday's meeting, a significant departure from past U.S. policy of not negotiating with Tehran.

U.S. spokesman Robert Wood says U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns met with Saeed Jalili, Tehran's chief negotiator.

Western diplomats said the two discussed issues during a lunch break at Thursday's talks. Wood, and two Western diplomats who demanded anonymity for discussing the confidential information, declined to elaborate to The Associated Press.

It is the first known direct high-level meeting between Washington and Tehran in years of attempts to persuade Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Iran says the program is peaceful, but some Western nations fear it could eventually produce nuclear weapons.

Diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia — plus Germany met Thursday with Iran's top nuclear negotiator.

Before the meeting, a senior U.S. official in Geneva called the talks the beginning of an "extraordinarily difficult process."

Tensions over Iran's nuclear program rose higher last week with the revelation that Iran has been secretly building an underground plant to enrich uranium. President Obama called that facility "a direct challenge" to the nuclear non-proliferation system, and said it shows that Iran is on "a path that is going to lead to confrontation."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed that charge as "baseless," and repeated his government's assertions that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said that Tehran viewed the talks as a "test" of the major powers' willingness to respect Iran's rights. Iranian officials have said the talks should include a wide range of issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian question and changes in the structure of the U.N. that would distribute power among more countries.