IRAN - Apr 23 - Larijani Given 'Authority For Compromise'.

A former senior Iranian diplomat Sadegh Kharrazi, former ambassador to Paris, says that Iran's top security official Ali Larijani, had been given "the authority for compromise" over Iran's nuclear programme in talks with the EU due Apr 23 in Turkey. He was signalling that Larijani has been given backing from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This was apparently lacking last year when Larijani's last talks with the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, failed to resolve the impasse over Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the September talks the EU side was frustrated by what they saw as Larijani's failure to make a clear proposal with the explicit backing of the leadership in Tehran. However, many officials believe the deeper reason for the current impasse is Iran's reluctance to give up key parts of its nuclear programme. "Of course the art of negotiation is that both sides emerge as heroes", Kharrazi told the FT. Kharrazi played a central role in nuclear talks with Europe under the previous government and was reportedly the author of a letter sent by Tehran in 2003 to Washington proposing improved relations. He was removed from office under the government of president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad but he retains access to top officials. Kharrazi told the FT in an interview last year that Tehran was ready to accept a limitation on its atomic programme as long as it kept a research and development scheme. Iranian newspapers have in recent days highlighted the growing strength of Iran's position after Ahmadi-Nejad's pronouncement on 'Nuclear Day' that Iran had reached an "industrial level" of enrichment and the IAEA confirmed it was using 1300 centrifuges, devices used to convert feeder gas into enriched uranium. Resalat, a conservative paper, wrote that the "scale" in the talks had tipped in Iran's favour, while the reformist Etemad-e Melli wrote that while the US "well understood Iran's weight and credibility", Tehran should reduce "international threats including the nuclear file" by re-energising its diplomacy. The normally assertive Ahmadi-Nejad has been restrained in recent remarks over the nuclear issue, which also suggests that Larijani is being given leeway by Ayatollah Khamenei. Ali Larijani, in remarks quoted on Iranian wires, warned Europe against a "diplomatic dance" while adding that "if talks are serious, they can lead to a solution benefiting them". Kharrazi said that in the background of nuclear talks - and other issues facing Iran - was Tehran's relationship with the US. "This can develop either towards confrontation or normalisation", he said. "There is nothing in between". Kharrazi said Iran would attend only next month's Sharm el-Shaikh conference on the future of Iraq with an indication from the US that it will free five Iranian diplomats it is detaining. He said releasing the five - whom US forces seized in Arbil, northern Iraq, in January - "would show goodwill at a critical time". Kharrazi said only "an agreement between the US, Iran and Iraq can stabilise" Iraq, and that without one "not only Iraq, but the region, will deteriorate".