Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The U.S.
and European Union express cautious optimism about the opening of Tehran, ready
to resume talks on Iran's nuclear program. However,
the British Foreign Minister William Hague warns that the ayatollahs' nuclear
ambitions could plunge the Middle East into "a new Cold War", because
"other nations" in the region "want to adopt" the same
technology, following the news, today, of Iranian warships in the Mediterranean.
The
official IRNA news agency reported the statement of Admiral Habibollah Sayyari,
commander of the Iranian navy, that a cruiser and a tanker passed - for the
second time in a year - the Strait of Suez and entered the Mediterranean.
The
warships are directed to the Syrian coast to "show the power of the
Islamic Republic" and at the same time, "bring a message of peace and
friendship" in the region.
On
the nuclear front, meanwhile, the U.S.
and the EU welcome the willingness of Iran to resume talks. For
Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, the letter sent by Tehran - in reply
to a letter from the Head of European diplomacy Catherine Ashton last October -
is "what we expected" for some time. Ashton
confirms "caution" but does not hide "optimism" for a
resumption of talks.
Meanwhile,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned to Tehran
at the end of the trilateral summit with Pakistan
and Afghanistan.
On
the sidelines of the summit, he talked about nuclear power, noting that
"the atomic bomb should have been excluded from global political
constraints" because "it has never made anyone stronger than others
and will never be used." And
the Islamic Republic, he added, is creating ties with other nations "going
beyond economic issues and those related to the bomb", but focusing on
" humanitarian, historical and cultural issues."
Talks
on Iran's nuclear program -
which covers the United States,
Great Britain, France, Russia,
China and Germany
- were interrupted last year. Tehran
wants to expand the table of discussions with other issues and insists its
program is "peaceful" and not intended to build the atomic bomb. A
suspicion, however, nourished by the United
States and the West, which have promoted economic
sanctions, while Israel
insists on the necessity of an attack to disrupt the "threat" from Iran.