Tuesday, February 14 2006 10:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged Iran to take steps to resume talks on its controversial nuclear programme before the IAEA meeting next month and prevent any action that might escalate its dispute with the West.

"We need to be able to work resolve it, and I hope there will be no steps taken to escalate the situation", Annan said after his meeting with US President George W Bush at the White House yesterday (Feb 14,2006).

Annan expressed hope that Iran would take steps to ensure that the negotiations were "not dead" before the IAEA meets in Vienna next month to decide whether to recommend UN Security Council action.

"I hope [that] between now and the time the atomic agency issues its next report, there will be indications and steps from the Iranian side to indicate that negotiations are not dead and that both sides can come back to the table and find a way out of this crisis," the Secretary General said in prepared remarks after the meeting.

His 45-minute-long Oval Office meeting with Bush touched on many areas of interest and concern including Iran, developments in the Middle East, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, Sudan and Darfur.

But, neither Bush nor Annan revealed whether they discussed the ongoing rage in parts of the Middle East over the cartoon row.

On Hamas, Annan said the militant Palestinian organisation should abandon violence and form a political party that would work with the international community and the Israel.