Iran, US Start Nuclear Talks in Geneva
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Senior Iranian and American officials met in the Swiss capital city of Geneva ahead of fresh round of nuclear talks between Tehran and the sextet of world powers (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany).
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is leading the Iranian delegation and the American team is led by the US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
During the two-day talks Araqchi is accompanied by a number of Iranian diplomats, including Deputy Foreign Minister for American and European Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi and Foreign Ministry's Director General for the Political and International Affairs Hamid Baeidinejad.
“In the talks, not any topic other than the nuclear discussions with the (Group) 5+1 will be mooted, as we have always insisted,” Araqchi, who is also a senior nuclear negotiator, had previously said in a television interview on Sunday.
Araqchi had said that the meeting with Americans is indeed a trilateral one, with Deputy EU Foreign Policy Chief Helga Schmid joining the Iranian and US diplomats in Switzerland.
The Iranian negotiating team is also set to hold a separate meeting with a Russian diplomatic delegation in the Italian capital of Rome on June 11 and 12.
In the meantime, Iran’s senior diplomats are set to hold separate bilateral meetings with representatives of other members of the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) in the run-up to the talks.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are scheduled to convene a new round of high-profile negotiations in the Austrian capital Vienna from June 16 to 20.
The upcoming negotiations are aimed at drafting a comprehensive deal to resolve the decade-long standoff over Tehran's peaceful nuclear energy program.