Iran advised to resume nuclear talks

China told Iran's top nuclear negotiator Friday that Tehran should abandon its defiance of UN sanctions and return to talks to resolve the standoff over its nuclear program, the Washington Post reported. The meeting between Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and President Hu Jintao comes months after China's backing of the UN Security Council's unanimous Dec. 23 resolution that imposed sanctions on Iran and called for a suspension of its uranium enrichment program. The Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed the resolution as "illegal," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called it "trash paper" and the enrichment effort has continued.