Solana, Iran aide renew contact on nuclear dispute

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani spoke by telephone on Monday on Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West and expect to talk again soon, an EU spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The U.N. Security Council tightened sanctions on Iran on Saturday over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

"The call was to renew contacts, to explain what the international community had done and to explain its willingness to re-establish a dialogue to prepare the conditions that should allow full negotiations to start," Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said.

She said they had agreed to speak again in the coming days.

"Yesterday was to re-establish contact. There was no discussion on substance," she said, adding that Larijani had made clear that Tehran was against the U.N. resolution.

Solana underlined the unity of the international community and the willingness of major powers to relaunch talks with Tehran on a package of economic, technical and political incentives to resolve the stand-off, Gallach said.

The Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose new sanctions targeting Tehran's arms exports, a state-owned bank and the elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki immediately rejected the council's demand to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used for making bombs and to generate electricity. He maintained Iran's program was for peaceful purposes.