VIENNA, (Reuters) – High-stakes talks between Iran  and big powers that stalled yesterday will resume today  and the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said a deal was still in  reach to help allay concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme.  

The multilateral talks, which began on Monday, faltered  after Iran said it would not agree to curb uranium enrichment,  something seen by the powers as essential to make any accord  work, and warned France could not be part of a deal.  

“I believe we are making progress. It is maybe slower than I  expected. But we are moving forward and we are going to meet  tomorrow at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT),” International Atomic Energy  Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters.

ElBaradei said the day was spent in separate bilateral  consultations involving Iran, France, Russia and the United  States and he believed a deal was still attainable.  

“We still hope to be able to reach an agreement. It’s a  complex process… There (are) many technical issues we have to  analyse. There is of course a question of confidence-building  guarantees,” he said, apparently referring to Iran.  

The negotiations, presided over by ElBaradei, offered the  first chance to build on a tentative agreement reached on Oct. 1  to defuse a long standoff over fears Iran’s stockpiling of  enriched uranium is a latent quest to develop atomic bombs.  

At those talks in Geneva, Western diplomats said, Iran  agreed in principle to send most of its low-enriched uranium to  Russia and France for further refinement. This would be  converted into fuel rods to replenish dwindling fuel stocks of a  Tehran reactor that makes radio-isotopes for cancer care. 

“The (consultations) have been constructive and the meeting  with all countries concerned will continue tomorrow,” Iran’s  IAEA ambassador, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters.