Wednesday, December 21 2005 18:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Vienna: Iran and the European Union began a key meeting today (Dec 21, 2005) in Vienna, with diplomats warning hopes are slim for getting Tehran to abandon making the nuclear fuel which the West says could be used to manufacture atomic bombs.

The talks between Foreign Ministry officials from Britain, France and Germany and Iranian National Security Council official Javad Vaidi are the first contact between the two sides since talks broke off in August, when Iran resumed uranium conversion.

Conversion is the first step in making enriched uranium that can both be nuclear reactor fuel or the explosive core of nuclear weapons.

All four delegations entered the French embassy on the baroque Schwarzenbergplatz in the Austrian capital at about 10:30am (1500IST).

Tehran made clear today that it would not stop the process of uranium conversion.

"From Iran's point of view the subject of the talks is to remove the suspension of the uranium processing facilities and this must happen within a clear timetable," Hossein Entezami, spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Iranian state radio.

Iran will insist on the right to enrich uranium on its own soil during the talks, Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said in Tehran.

"It is normal when we talk about enrichment for manufacturing nuclear fuel, it means having enrichment and the nuclear fuel cycle on our own territory," Mottaki told reporters.