Big powers to hold Iran meeting in Paris Thursday

BERLIN (Reuters) - Senior officials from major powers will meet in Paris on Thursday to discuss the next steps in their showdown with Iran over its nuclear program, a U.S. official and a European diplomatic source said.

They said senior foreign ministry representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United States would attend the meeting.

Iran said last week it had received a letter from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana urging new talks on its nuclear work.

Iran has questions following receipt of the letter and the powers would discuss how to respond to them, the European diplomatic source added, providing no other details.

The West fears Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is pressing it to halt its uranium enrichment work, which can have both civilian and military uses.

Tehran says it only wants to generate electricity and has ruled out freezing enrichment, drawing three rounds of United Nations sanctions since 2006.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Noah Barkin; editing by Andrew Roche)