Iran’s FM Says Will Meet US Counterpart to Evaluate Nuclear Talks
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he will hold a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Switzerland to assess the latest progress in nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers and make decisions accordingly.
“In Geneva, we will study the latest status of the (nuclear) negotiations, based on which we will make decisions,” the top Iranian diplomat and head of the negotiating team told the IRIB on Friday upon his arrival in Geneva.
Zarif noted that Iran sticks to the principles it had already manifested and also remains committed to what has been stipulated in the Lausanne statement, a framework nuclear agreement that was reached on April 2 and outlines the generalities of a lasting nuclear deal.
What the other side claims about the procedure of removal of anti-Iran sanctions under the possible comprehensive agreement is for “domestic consumption” alone, Zarif explained.
On Friday, top Iranian nuclear negotiators, Abbas Araqchi and Majid Takht Ravanchi also left Austria’s Vienna for Geneva to join tomorrow’s meeting between Zarif and Kerry.
The two top Iranian negotiators were in Vienna since Wednesday to press on with the job of drafting the text of a final nuclear deal between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will also join the nuclear talks in Geneva on Saturday, the US Energy Department said in a statement on Thursday.
