Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called on Tehran to agree to negotiations chaired by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton during the week starting November 15.
Russia urged Iran on Friday to take up the offer of six major powers for mid-November talks on its disputed nuclear programme, the Interfax news agency said.
Tehran had been ambiguous about its willingness to go back to talks with the United States, Russia, France, Britain, China and Germany to dispel concerns that its declared civilian atomic energy programme is a cover for the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called on Tehran to agree to negotiations chaired by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton during the week starting November 15.
"We urge our Iranian friends and colleagues to officially respond in a positive manner to the invitation," Interfax quoted Ryabkov, Russia's representative to negotiations between Iran and the six powers, as saying in an interview in Brussels.
Last week, the EU proposed a three-day negotiation in mid-November in Vienna.
A senior Iranian official said on Monday Iran was ready to meet any time but said the subject must be made clear in advance, among other conditions.
Iran has long insisted on a right to peaceful nuclear technology, and that it is not seeking nuclear weapons. But its past concealment of sensitive nuclear activity and continued curbs on UN inspections has raised suspicion abroad.
Iran's first, Russian-built nuclear power plant is to go on line soon and the government says it plans build up to 20 reactors over the next two decades.
Talks with the six powers stalled in October 2009 and governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution two months later rebuking Iran for having hidden a second uranium enrichment project for over two years.
Russia has voiced increasing frustration with Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment in exchange for trade and diplomatic incentives on offer from the six powers since 2006.
Moscow, which long sought to temper Western efforts to isolate Iran, endorsed harsher UN sanctions against Tehran in June and later announced it would not fulfil a contract to sell S-300 air defence missile systems to the Islamic Republic.
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