Hailing what she called a "far-reaching" set of proposals, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett urged Tehran to respond positively to benefits offered in order to allay fears that it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Here is the full text of her comments to reporters after a two-hour meeting of foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States:

"I am pleased to say that we have agreed a set of far-reaching proposals as a basis for discussion with Iran.

We believe that they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation.

We are prepared to resume negotiations should Iran resume a suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities as required by the IAEA and we would also suspend action in the Security Council.

We have also agreed that if Iran decides not to engage in negotiation further steps will have to be taken in the Security Council.

So there are two paths ahead. We urge Iran to take the postive path and to consider seriously our substantive proposals which would bring signficant benefits to Iran.

We will now be talking to the Iranians about our proposals."