World powers test Iran's will to end nuclear row

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The unprecedented participation of a senior U.S. official in the one-day meeting in Geneva, together with Iranian comments playing down the likelihood of an attack by the United States and Israel, have raised hopes of progress.

Signs of easing tension have helped knock the price of oil off recent record highs, but the optimism was tempered by a U.S. insistence that despite the presence of its envoy William Burns, real negotiations cannot begin until Iran has frozen sensitive nuclear work, a step Tehran has repeatedly ruled out.

"That remains the U.S. position and it will continue to be the U.S. position," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference in Washington.

Speaking in Tehran ahead of the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki welcomed the meeting: "We evaluate today's Geneva negotiations as positive and constructive."

"Today's meeting might continue with several others so that the view points of all sides can be put on the table so that we reach ... agreement," he told reporters.

Mottaki did not elaborate what he meant by agreement, but added that he hoped the Geneva talks would pave the way for agreeing on "a modality and a framework" for further negotiations.

His tone reflected that of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who spoke of his "positive intentions" as he arrived in Geneva on Friday for the talks with officials from the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - the so-called sextet.

"CREATIVE" DIPLOMACY

Jalili has a mandate from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take any decision needed, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, adding that the meeting "will clarify the fate of the negotiations".

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