Malaysia Monday expressed its hope that Iran would continue to be engaged with all the parties involved in order to get the issue about its nuclear energy program resolved peacefully.

It was important that negotiations on the issue should proceed without any impediment, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters at his ministry after he met with Christopher Hill, who is U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Malaysia's position on the issue was clear -- that it would like to see a world free from nuclear weapons, while the right of nations to have nuclear technology for civilian applications could be respected, he said.

Syad said that he had a telephone conversation on Sunday with U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the issue after he met with three ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany on the same issue last week.

Malaysia currently chairs the Organization of Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, whose membership includes Iran.

Syed also said that, during their talks, Hill confirmed Rice's attendance at the annual consultation with ASEAN foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur in July.

The minister said that his talks with Hill also touched on the nuclear issue on the Korea Peninsula as well as his planned trip to Myanmar.

Syed said that he had told Hill that he would invite his counterpart from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum in conjunction with the Ministerial Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July.

Source: Xinhua