Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Iran opened the way to wider talks on its disputed nuclear work as U.S. and European officials said they awaited follow-through on allowing international inspections and limiting uranium enrichment.

Iran agreed in talks at Geneva to allow inspectors to visit its newly disclosed underground nuclear fuel plant within the next two weeks and will meet with negotiators for the U.S. and other United Nations powers later this month, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday.

“Obviously this is just one day and it’s the very beginning of talks,” said Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. diplomat involved in efforts under President George W. Bush to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear-weapons capability. “I do think this was a worthy enterprise.”

Iran agreed to consider sending most of its stock of enriched uranium to Russia and France to be converted into fuel for a Tehran research reactor that makes isotopes for medical use.

That would fall short of a full suspension of uranium enrichment, which the U.S. and its allies have sought. Still, it would hinder Iran’s ability, at least temporarily, to enrich uranium to a level needed for a nuclear weapon, analysts said.

It would remove uranium that could be used to go to highly enriched form for “a year and brings it back in a form that’s much harder for Iran to misuse,” said James Acton, an associate in the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Iranian officials insist that the country’s enrichment of uranium is for a nuclear power industry.

Natanz Production

Acton said Iran will still be producing low-enriched uranium at its Natanz facility, “so this is not in any way an indefinite solution, but it does mitigate the problem in the short term.”

The Geneva talks, in an 18th-century villa outside the city, brought together Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili with envoys of the five permanent UN Security Council members -- the U.S, Russia, China, France and Britain -- plus Germany.

Since the group last met and failed to make headway in July 2008, President Barack Obama was elected and promised to engage Iran, and Russia moved closer to the U.S., France, and Britain in threatening tighter sanctions if Iran doesn’t stop its uranium enrichment.

ElBaradei Visit

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has been invited to Tehran by Iranian authorities.

“He will travel there soon to discuss a number of matters,” IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said in an e-mail late yesterday.

Jalili will meet with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey today, the state-run Fars news agency reported.

The talks were a “constructive beginning but it must be followed by constructive action by the Iranian government,” Obama said yesterday at the White House. “Talk is no substitute for action.”

Obama said negotiations can’t go on indefinitely and the U.S. is ready to put pressure on Iran if the government doesn’t respond.

U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, voiced skepticism about Iran’s intentions, saying in a statement he is concerned “the international community may be providing an opportunity for an historically belligerent regime to stall for time without taking any action.”

Sanctions Offer

Solana said Iran didn’t directly respond to his offer to freeze UN sanctions imposed on Iran in exchange for the Persian Gulf country freezing uranium enrichment. That offer will be taken up in subsequent meetings, said Jacques Audibert, political secretary of the French Foreign Ministry and France’s representative at the talks.

The U.S. and its European allies cite Iran’s disclosure last week of a second uranium-enrichment plant as evidence that it has flouted UN restrictions. The facility is burrowed into a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

Iran’s conciliatory positions in Geneva could be driven by domestic problems and a desire to maintain support from China and Russia against tougher sanctions, said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University in California.

Domestic Crisis

“Iran needs to ‘make nice’ these days,” Milani said. “It has a major domestic crisis at home and Khamenei cannot fight on two fronts,” he said, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Aki Khamenei and the split in the country’s leadership caused by allegations of fraud in June’s elections.

The talks at the Villa de Saugy on Lake Geneva began shortly after 10 a.m. local time. Iran’s three-man delegation sat at an oval table facing Solana and the political directors of the six world powers. The talks included several one-on-one meetings, including a 45-minute conversation between U.S. undersecretary for political affairs William Burns and Jalili.

The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran following the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, though the two nations have held discussions on Iraq’s postwar security.

Burns used the meeting with Jalili to raise the issue of three American hikers detained after straying across Iran’s border, and human rights violations during the post-election crackdown on the opposition.

The discussions marked a “positive step for the start of talks” around issues of concern to Iran, Jalili told reporters after Solana spoke. “We agreed to follow up on these matters, to reach a framework for further cooperation.”

Diplomats said Jalili talked about security issues, regional concerns in the Middle East and international nuclear disarmament, before talks were steered back to the nuclear issue.

In New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the atmosphere in Geneva was “constructive” and Iran is ready to “enhance” the discussions.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Geneva at gviscusi@bloomberg.net; Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 2, 2009 03:38 EDT