Angelina Jolie smiles at a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (Reuters)

Davos (Switzerland), Jan. 29 (Reuters): Call it the meal from hell.

A World Economic Forum dinner designed to promote dialogue between Iran and the US last night began with a comic strip series of diplomatic and gastronomic blunders, and ended with a sharp exchange over nuclear weapons.

With Iran?s vice-president and foreign minister in the room, the organisers began by announcing they had not invited Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, one of the listed panelists, because the issues were too serious. The star guest, US Senator Joe Biden was missing. The organisers kept saying he was on his way.

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, apologised for the fact that wine had been served, upsetting the Muslim guests. Waiters cleared the offending glasses.

They also removed the menus since the hotel had planned to serve non-hallal meat, breaching Islamic dietary rules. Even the soup spoons were withdrawn ? erroneously, it transpired.

One participant asked whether different cultures could not tolerate each other?s dietary customs. Foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi responded that tolerance was fine but it did not mean people should not respect each other?s religious values. If wine was served, his delegation could not participate in the meal, he said.

The questioning quickly focused on Iran?s disputed nuclear programme and the risk of a US or Israeli military strike on its atomic facilities.

Kharrazi swore anew the programme was purely for peaceful, civilian purposes, contrary to US and Israeli charges that it is a front for a secret drive to build nuclear weapons.

The minister insisted Iran had every legal right to develop its scientific potential, including by mastering the enrichment of uranium, a process that can help make a bomb.

?We want to be independent. That?s why we developed our nuclear technology. It has become a matter of national pride,? he said.

Asked whether it might be in Iran?s national interest to foreswear nuclear enrichment rather than risk isolation, tougher economic sanctions and military action, he said maintaining scientific self-sufficiency was one of Tehran?s highest goals.

Perhaps feeling the atmosphere was becoming too heated, hotel staff opened the windows, sending a blast of icy alpine air (outdoor temperature -15 degrees Celsius) through the room.

Biden finally arrived an hour and 20 minutes late, having gone to the wrong hotel. His wife?s figure-hugging leather pants and a top that left her arms bare from the shoulders were in stark contrast to vice-president Masoumeh Ebtekar?s all-enveloping chador.

Biden said Washington should join three major European nations in trying to negotiate a deal under which Iran would end nuclear enrichment in return for security and economic benefits.

He cast doubt on Kharrazi?s assurances, saying he could understand why there could be consensus in Iran on the need for nuclear arms because it lived in a dangerous neighbourhood.