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**Galaxy**

The first international negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme for 15 months are under way in Istanbul amid increasing signs that Tehran is prepared to trade limits on its enrichment of uranium for relief from economic sanctions.

"I hope what we will see today is the beginnings of a sustained process," said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is also the main representative of the US, France, Russia, China, Germany and Britain at the talks.

"What we are here to do is to find ways in which we can build confidence between us and ways in which we can demonstrate that Iran is moving away from a nuclear weapons programme."

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has held preliminary talks with Russian and Chinese diplomats, telling them he had come prepared for substantive negotiation.

"All the signs from the Iranians are that they want to be serious and constructive," a source close to the talks said.

Diplomats said they did not expect an immediate deal, but they hoped the talks would open a path towards a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis and avert the threat of a new war in the Middle East. They said that the benchmark for success would be whether there was enough common ground by Saturday night to justify a second round of talks within the next few weeks.

"Iran will have to show that it is ready for serious engagement," said a diplomat involved in the talks. "Quite what it will look like is something we will have to make a judgment call on. The stakes are pretty high, so it's important to get it right."

Another source at the talks said there had been a string of signals from Tehran that it would be prepared to limit its enrichment of uranium in return for a relaxation of sanctions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr...-sanctions