No Ministerial Meeting on Agenda of Nuclear Talks: Iranian Negotiator
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – As a number of foreign ministers of the world powers engaged in nuclear talks with Iran are scheduled to travel to Vienna, a top Iranian negotiator ruled out any plan for a plenary ministerial meeting on Sunday.
Speaking in a televised interview in Vienna on Saturday, Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and a senior member of the country’s team of nuclear negotiators, said the presence of foreign ministers of the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) can help the parties “make decisions at a higher level.”
He said the idea of attendance of foreign ministers in the talks was proposed given the fact that “no serious progress has been made over the fundamental issues.”
Delegates from Iran and the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) have launched a new round of nuclear talks in the Austrian capital since July 2 in a bid to hammer out a comprehensive deal on Tehran’s nuclear case.
This round of talks is expected to run until at least July 15. With time running short, the two sides have now less than ten days to clinch a deal by their self-imposed deadline that expires on July 20.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Araqchi made it clear that “the major sticking points still exist” in the course of talks, stressing that Iran will not back down from the principal stances over its peaceful nuclear program.
He also said that the parties have managed to draft approximately 70 percent of the text of a final deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), but at the same time noted that no progress has been made so far on the “substantial issues”.
The Iranian diplomat also said it is difficult to predict whether the long-awaited deal will be clinched until July 20 or not, but expressed the hope that presence of foreign ministers in Vienna would contribute to the talks.
On Thursday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates diplomacy with Iran on behalf of the sextet, invited all foreign ministers from the six powers to Vienna to "take stock of where we are", her spokesman said.
US Secretary State John Kerry, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier are among the ranking diplomats that will be definitely in Austria on Sunday.
