BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — A French parliamentary delegation paid a visit to Iran last weekend in an attempt to get a better understanding of the country’s position in the nuclear dispute. But due to Western nations’ hardline stance and Tehran’s defiance, analysts hold out little hope for an early settlement of the issue.

Elisabeth Guigou, a French socialist lawmaker, said Sunday that the delegation failed to gain new insights into Iran’s nuclear policies during the two-day visit.

“As far as the nuclear issue is concerned, we leave Iran with less than we knew before,” he told reporters at the French ambassador’s residence in Tehran.

Several Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, met with the delegation, all members of the French parliament’s Foreign Policy Commission.

Jean-Louis Bianco, who headed the delegation, said the Iranian officials “made speeches again and insisted on their previous positions.”

“There was no new insight to get out of the current impasse,” he said.

At a meeting with Bianco Saturday, Larijani called the West’s behavior toward Iran’s nuclear program “hasty and irrational,” especially in its rush to approve a new UN Security Council resolution on Tehran.

He called on Western nations to rectify their approach toward his country.

“Some of the West’s actions towards Iran are illogical and hasty. A change in this behavior would not only improve mutual relations but also solve the existing misinterpretations,” Larijani said.

Iran, which insists on its right to pursue civil nuclear technology, is under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down the West’s calls to halt sensitive uranium enrichment activities.

The country considers the UN resolutions and financial sanctions against it as politically motivated.

The United States and its allies have accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons, but the Islamic republic insists that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said Western nations have no choice but to win Iranians’ trust on the country’s nuclear issue.

The West had to give a responsive and “positive” answer to a letter sent by Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Qashqavi told reporters at his weekly press conference.

“We hope to continue (nuclear) talks,” he was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

Iran has so far had “massive, constructive and serious cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said, adding that Tehran has given a 200-page response to show its goodwill to “undocumented claims.”

Earlier this month, IRNA reported that Jalili had sent a letter to Solana, disclosing Iran’s stance on the West’s behavior toward its nuclear activities.

But days after the report, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that the continued standoff over Iran’s nuclear program is creating an increasingly dangerous situation and accused Tehran of making dialogue on the topic “impossible.”

Speaking to a local radio in Paris, Kouchner described frustration among global powers over Iranian intransigence in the face of UN demands that it halt uranium enrichment and other disputed nuclear activities.

“In their latest resolution, passed on Sept. 27, the six countries — the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — continued to stress that the situation was getting moreand more dangerous,” he said.

“We are for dialogue. But where is the dialogue? Every time we met with the Iranians it was impossible to pursue a dialogue,” Kouchner said.

Last Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband reiterated his country’s commitment to further sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas sector if Tehran continues uranium enrichment, a process which makes nuclear fuel but also the core of an atomic bomb.

However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off the international sanctions threat, saying Western nations should know that sanctions can do nothing to his country.

Analysts said that because of deep divisions derived from a grudge against each other, Iran and Western nations are unlikely to put an early end to their tit-for-tat struggle on the nuclear issue.