More Bilateral Meetings Needed: Iran Nuclear Negotiator
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Tehran and six world powers should hold a number of one-to-one meetings before the next round of nuclear talks in New York, a top Iranian negotiator said.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi, who is also a senior member of the country’s nuclear team, said on Thursday that Tehran is planning to launch separate bilateral talks with each of the Group 5+1 members before a plenary meeting in New York.
He said “more detailed” discussions are required before Iran and the six nations (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) resume their talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program in September.
Araqchi made the comments after a meeting with senior US diplomats in the Swiss city of Geneva.
He said the bilateral talks with the US team revolved around the main stumbling blocks in negotiations between Iran and the Group5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3).
“The main focus of bilateral talks with the United States in Geneva on Thursday was the existing differences,” he explained.
US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Vice President National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met Iranian negotiators in Geneva to discuss disagreements over Iran’s nuclear energy program.
Washington later hailed the Thursday talks in Geneva as “constructive”.
"It was, I would say, a constructive discussion," US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington. "We're not going to get into details."
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates diplomacy with Iran on behalf of the six powers, announced that the parties would hold a new round of nuclear talks before the UN General Assembly.
Michael Mann said on Thursday the EU expected to hold the talks at a location to be determined in advance of the ministerial meetings at UN General Assembly, slated for September 16.
On July 18, after more than two weeks of intensive diplomatic negotiations in Vienna, Iran and the six nations agreed to continue talks for another four months.
The two sides decided to extend the nuclear talks until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal. The four-month extension of the talks began on July 21.
