Iran nuclear talks fail to make progress The attempt by six world powers to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear programme suffered a clear setback on Thursday when negotiations to defuse the crisis failed to make any progress. After an often fraught two days of talks in Baghdad between the six powers and Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili, there was agreement to hold a new session of talks on June 18. However, western diplomats at the Baghdad meeting conceded that the talks had been difficult - and that they only managed to extract an agreement from Iran to agree to the meeting in Moscow in the final hours of negotiations. A failure to set a date for a new meeting would have indicated that the negotiations between the six powers and Iran had completely broken down. Western diplomats appear to have spent much of Thursday pressuring Mr Jalili to avoid this outcome, amid fears it would have made the slide into conflict between Israel and Iran unavoidable. Catherine Ashton, the European high representative who chairs the six powers - the US, Britain, France,Germany, China and Russia - said clear differences remained between the international community and Iran. At a press conference after the talks, Lady Ashton said: "It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground, However, significant pressures remain." William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, said the talks had made "limited progress." He urged Iran to take "urgent, concrete steps" to address international demands to halt its programme. In an attempt to give a positive gloss to the meeting, a senior western diplomat said that Iran was now actively talking about its nuclear programme, an issue that it refused to do in the past. "The threshold for this meeting was to get into detailed discussions that showed Iran was prepared to discuss its programme," said a senior US official. We did achieve that. However, others said the meeting failed to agree on a defined package of reciprocal step-by-step measures that Iran and the international community would take to move towards a peaceful outcome. Under the terms of the package, Iran would have halted production of 20 per cent enriched uranium, a level that is close to weapons-grade. Such a move would begin to boost confidence that Iran is halting its nuclear ambitions. The West would have responded by offering help, for example, providing parts for Iran's civil aircraft. However, diplomats noted that no progress was made on the step-by-step package and one European official suggested Mr Jalili had clearly undermined the draft work done by his deputy in preparing it. "If you ask me how I would rate the meeting, I'd say it was a six out of 10," said a western diplomat. Solid negotiations are taking place ... But this meeting still fell below the realistic expectations we had. The failure to get any concrete concessions from Iran over 20 per cent enrichment may prompt some experts to suggest that the Moscow meeting is now a "make-or-break" moment in attempts to get a peaceful resolution to the impasse over Iran's nuclear programme. The dialogue needs to generate quick results if Israel is to be dissuaded from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in the near future, say analysts. Israel is contemplating such an attack because it sees an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat and believes Iran's programme is going beyond the point of no return.