A senior nuclear negotiator said on Sunday that experts from Iran and the six major powers will meet in Vienna on Wednesday and Thursday with the aim of sorting out technical issues in the talks on the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.
Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the expert-level talks will be led by Hamid Baeidinejad, the director general of the foreign ministry's department for political affairs, and nuclear expert Stephan Klement, who represents European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, IRNA reported.
He also said the date and venue of the next round of high-level nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) will be set in the near future.
It is likely that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Ashton, who coordinates the talks on behalf of the P5+1, will hold a trilateral meeting within the next two weeks to help advance international diplomacy on the nuclear issue, he added.
Nuclear Accord Not Certain
Araqchi said it is not certain that Iran and the six powers (The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany) will be able to reach a nuclear agreement by a late November deadline. “There are still many issues that we have not reached agreement on them. In some cases we have made some progress, but we have not reached agreement on major issues.” On the possibility of the extension of the talks beyond the November 24 deadline, he said, “No negotiating party is interested in the extension of the negotiations.”
“All parties are determined to reach an agreement by the target date, so the extension of the talks is not on the agenda.”
Iran and the six major powers are trying to build on an interim nuclear accord they reached in Geneva last November to hammer out a long-term settlement to the nuclear dispute, which has dragged on for over a decade. They have set a November 24 target date to strike a deal. The final deal would impose temporary constraints on Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for a phased lifting of sanctions.
The most recent round of high-level nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers, which was held in the Austrian capital from October 14 to 16, made “some progress” The chief nuclear negotiator said on Thursday, “All sides believe that in the new round of nuclear talks some progress was made and the process of the talks is forward-moving… although the progress is slow.” Zarif also said, “We think that we have moved forward in all the fields and various proposals were discussed.”
