Iran should give "an early reply" to an invitation to restart talks on its nuclear programme, representatives of the international community said Friday, while confirming their determination to press ahead with sanctions, dpa reported.
Diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - representing the so-called "5+1" group - said after meeting at European Union headquarters in Brussels that they were still seeking a negotiated solution with Tehran.
According to a statement read by the EU official chairing the talks, the 5+1 "look forward to an early reply from the Iranian nuclear negotiator, Dr Saeid Jalili, to (EU foreign policy chief) Catherine Ashton's letter proposing the rapid resumption of talks."
As well as offering a resumption of dialogue, 5+1 nations said they were "committed" to implementing the latest round of sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council last month.
The international community suspects that Iran's nuclear programme is designed to create an atomic bomb, something that Tehran denies. As a result, the country has been hit by several sets of UN sanctions.
The EU and the US have pledged to go further, with US President Barack Obama approved extra restrictive measures Thursday. EU foreign ministers are expected to sign off their own extra set on July 26.
The 5+1 meeting took place a few days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would be ready to resume nuclear talks in late August.
In return, he called for the involvement of Turkey and Brazil, the only two UN Security Council members which opposed fresh sanctions on Iran, after negotiating a nuclear fuel swap deal for Tehran's medical reactor.
But a senior EU official said the two nations would not be asked to take part in the talks, at least "not at this stage."
He also said the 5+1 was considering whether to give a unified response to a recent letter in which Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki pledged to defy international sanctions by continuing with uranium enrichment programmes.