Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator close to the influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, called yesterday for renewed diplomacy with the west to break the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.

He also implied that Iran had no choice but to accept last month's United Nations Security Council resolution, which imposed sanctions and set a two-month deadline for Tehran to suspend almost all its nuclear activities. But he said Tehran should also continue to bargain over its "rights" to a nuclear fuel cycle.