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A letter addressed to Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, slams her offer to resume talks a day after the U.N. Security Council passed its fourth set of sanctions, calling it "astonishing," and describing subsequent E.U. and U.S. sanctions as "even more astonishing."

"This kind of behavior ... is absolutely unacceptable," says the letter, from Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

The second letter says that "irrational conditions" imposed by the West are blocking a new round of the fuel swap talks. Addressed to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano and signed by Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, the letter accuses the five permanent members of the U.N. security council of poisoning the atmosphere "through (the) imposition of another illegal resolution."

While both letters say Iran is ready to talk, the one to Ashton - the point person for the six big powers - sets the bar perhaps unreachably high, suggesting that Tehran is prepared to come to the table only if the other side ends its "hostility," avoids "any kind of pressure or threat" and states its "clear position on the nuclear weapons of the Zionist regime."