Turkey Tuesday urged Iran and Western powers to implement a nuclear fuel-swap deal and launch talks as soon as possible before the standoff over Tehran 's atomic program worsens.

"If they do not sit down and talk, we will be in a worse-off situation this time next year. Time is working against a solution," foreign ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin told a press conference in Ankara .

"President Ahmadinejad alluded to the month of August [for the talks]. We wish they would take place sooner," Ozugergin said.

On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ruled out talks with the P5+1 world powers--the U.K., France, Russia, China, the U.S. and Germany--on Tehran's uranium-enrichment program until the end of the Iranian month of Mordad, around late August.

The Iranian leader described the freeze as a "penalty" in retaliation for a fourth round of sanctions that the United Nations Security Council slapped on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium-enrichment work.

Iran 's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday that the freeze didn't apply to discussions on a nuclear fuel-swap deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil in May.

Ozugergin described the fuel deal as an "important confidence-building measure" and said it was still on the table.

"We would like this deal to be implemented and for negotiations to be held to resolve outstanding issues" in order to secure a peaceful settlement to the dispute over Tehran 's nuclear program, he added.

Under the May deal, Iran agreed to send 1,200 kilogram of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey . In return, the Islamic republic would be supplied with higher-grade fuel from Russia and France for a research reactor.

However, it was cold-shouldered by the U.S. and other world powers, on the grounds that it didn't go far enough to allay fears that Tehran is using its atomic drive as a cover for a nuclear-weapons program.

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