Iran backs Indo-Pak talks; offers help if required

Iran today supported moves to resume dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve their differences saying it welcomed direct talks but expressed readiness to help in this process if required.

"We have always welcomed direct negotiations between India and Pakistan. We feel direct negotiations will succeed much faster," Iranian Ambassador Seyed Mehdi Nabizadeh told reporters here.

Noting that negotiations between India and Pakistan were "supposed to start", he said it will "certainly have desirable thoughts."

"Iran, being a friend of India and Pakistan, can play a role in facilitating the negotiations if there is any need," Nabizadeh said through an interpreter.

India has offered to have Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan to discuss terrorism and any other issue that could lead to peace between the two neighbours. New Delhi believes that normalising relations with Islamabad is a bilateral issue and opposed any intervention by a third party.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has invited her counterpart Salman Bashir to New Delhi for the talks that mark softening of India's post-26/11 stance apparently because Pakistan government has produced evidence in court against those held in connection with Mumbai terror attacks.

Asked whether Iran believed in the concept of good and bad Taliban, Nabizadeh said, "There is no such thing as good or bad Taliban. Taliban is Taliban."

The recent London Conference on the Afghanistan issue had indicated willingness of western countries, who have troops in Afghanistan, to engage the "good Taliban" in its bid to restore stability to the region.

"Regional countries and neighbouring countries can play a more constructive role in Afghanistan," he said.

On the much-talked about Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, Nabizadeh said Iran had kept the doors open for India to join the project. "Opportunity has been given but it cannot be indefinite. There has to be some limit to that."

The Ambassador said that from today Iran had begun enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity level at its Natanz plant under the supervision of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog.

"From today we have started enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent purity level in the presence of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors at Natanz," he said.