Iran’s Zarif Likely to Return Home for Consultations
VIENNA (Tasnim) – Iran’s Foreign Minister and the country's Chief Nuclear Negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif may leave Vienna for Tehran tonight for consultations and exchange of views with high-ranking officials on nuclear talks, a source announced Friday.
A source close to the Iranian team of negotiators said the country’s top diplomat is likely to fly to Tehran on Friday evening.
According to Tasnim dispatches, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond are also planned to return home tonight for further consultations.
Earlier, Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as the European Union’s negotiator on Iran, Catherine Ashton, had held two rounds of trilateral meeting in Vienna.
The trilateral meeting, which took place on Thursday night at Vienna’s Palais Coburg hotel, was part of the intensive diplomatic meetings in a fresh round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
Since Tuesday, senior diplomats from Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) have launched a new round of talks in Vienna to draft a lasting accord, meant to end years of Western standoff over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The talks are expected to continue until November 24, a self-imposed deadline for the talks.
