Trust needed in nuclear row

Tehran: The new head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said on Saturday Iran and the West needed to renew efforts to build mutual trust and end a dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.

It was Ali Akbar Salehi's first official comment since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad named him on Thursday to replace Gholam Reza Aghazadeh as head of the body leading Iran's nuclear activities.

"We hope that, contrary to the hostilities in the past six years, more efforts are taken to gain mutual trust ... so that a case, open during the last six years, would be closed," US-educated Salehi told state television.

He made no suggestion, however, that Iran would be prepared to halt or freeze sensitive nuclear work which the West suspects is aimed at making nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran rejects.

Ahmadinejad, re-elected last month for a second four-year term, has ruled out prospects of Iran bowing to Western pressure and conducting talks on the issue.

His first term saw a steady expansion of nuclear enrichment activity which can have both civilians and military uses.