About eight years have passed since Iran's nuclear program came under the spotlight, but the prospect of resolving this issue still seems gloomy.

In early December, Iran and the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany (G5+1) held the latest round of talks in Geneva after fourteen months of deadlock because of division over a nuclear swap deal brokered by IAEA, without reaching any agreement other than a new round of talks in January in Istanbul.

The two sides could not reach agreement on what had been discussed during the two-day closed-door session that ended on December 7 and was attended by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and the European Union (EU) foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on behalf of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

In a statement issued on the day, Ashton said "we and Iran agreed to a continuation of these talks in late January in Istanbul where we plan to discuss practical ideas and ways of cooperating toward resolution of our core concerns about the nuclear issue."

Ashton said the parties had conducted "detailed and substantive talks focusing on the Iranian nuclear program and the need for Iran to comply with these international obligations."

"The countries I represent are united in seeking a resolution of the international communities' concerns regarding the Iranian nuclear program, which is the central purpose of these talks," she said.

However, Iran's Jalili said at a press conference after the Geneva nuclear talks that the only agreement reached by all sides is to hold further talks in Istanbul in January 2011, a gathering that provides opportunity for "talks in cooperation to find common grounds."

He rejected any claims stating that agreements were made to discuss Iran's nuclear issues in Istanbul next month, saying as Iran has reiterated, and as it was expected, Iran did not let the "Iranians' (nuclear) rights" be discussed in the talks.

Iran will not discuss the issue of nuclear enrichment, as "the Iranians' rights", in the potential Istanbul talks either, Jalili said, referring to the enrichment issue as Iranians' inalienable rights, which is unnegotiable and said Iran will only talk on the multifaceted global issues.

The West has long accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons under civilian disguise, demanding the latter to halt its controversial uranium enrichment activities, while the Islamic Republic insisted uranium enrichment activities be done in the country to supply fuel for Tehran medical research reactor and Bushehr nuclear power plant, the first in Iran which finished fuel loading in November and will join the national grid in January.

The wide division between the two sides over the uranium enrichment issue seems very hard to be removed. And local analysts believe prospects of solving the long-standing nuclear issue is bleak.

"On the statements that Iranian political leaders have made, I don't think they will ever give up enriching uranium inside Iran. Because as I said, enriching uranium inside the country is legal under international law. So Iranian leaders don't see any reason to stop it," Dr. Foad Izadi, a research fellow at the Faculty of World Studies of Tehran University, told Xinhua in an interview.

Also, Dr. Seyed Mohammad Marandi, another Iranian scholar told Xinhua in May that hundreds of thousands of patients in Iran use radio medicines annually which are provided by Tehran research reactor and they would be in risks in case the reactor was not fed by the nuclear fuel.

This was an urgent need for the country and if the country was not given the 20 percent enriched uranium for the reactor Iran would produce it itself, he concluded.

To make things more complicated, an Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated in a bomb attack a week before the Geneva talks. Iran accused agents of the West were involved in the attack.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi said just a day ahead of the latest talks that Iran had become self-sufficient in producing nuclear yellowcake, a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores.

Both incidents further haunted, and will still shadow, the talks, said local observers.

On December 13, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Salehi, who is also Iran's vice president, as the caretaker of foreign ministry after Manouchehr Mottaki's unexpected dismissal.

The move signifies, as analysts observe, that the nuclear issue will further overshadow Iran's foreign policy to the effect of complicating the problem.

Whether the next round of talks is to be held as scheduled in January or again delayed, no breakthrough is anticipated with both sides firm on their own stances over Iran's uranium enrichment activities.