Foreign ministers of Iran and the six major powers involved in negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program may meet on the sidelines of the forthcoming UN General Assembly in New York, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
“It is possible that a meeting of the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) ministers with the Iranian foreign minister will be needed. There are reasons for contacts in this format,” Ryabkov said.
He said the ministerial meeting depended on the new round of nuclear negotiations between political directors of Iran and the six major powers – Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany – in New York from September 18 to 22.
“I think that if the meeting starts to produce some results, then a full-format ‘six plus one’ meeting with Iran will take place,” he said.
The upcoming talks in New York may yield groundbreaking results in reaching a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Russian negotiator said.
“The New York negotiations could be a watershed moment, if you ask me, a certain frontier, after which specific agreements will be reached promptly. Let’s hope for this. Necessary preconditions for it have been created,” Ryabkov said.
The international mediators and Iran have to demonstrate maximum political will and focus on the result during the talks in New York, he added.
On November 24, 2013, an action plan was adopted in Geneva, according to which Iran and the P5+1 international mediation group have to reach an agreement that would guarantee the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions on Iran.
The document has to be signed within a year of the Geneva accord, which gives the parties until November 24, 2014 to reach a final agreement.
