Negotiations among Parties Underway in Vienna
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Negotiating teams representing Iran and the six world powers held several bilateral meetings in the Austrian capital on Tuesday in pursuit of a comprehensive deal on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The Austrian capital hosts delegations from Iran and the G5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) for a fresh round of talks that commenced this morning, with the aim of reaching a comprehensive agreement on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The Vienna negotiations kicked off officially at 11 a.m. local time (1330 Tehran time), with a symbolic meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who leads the team of Iranian negotiators, and the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who represents the six world powers (also known as P5+1 or E3+3).
The two sides concluded the first session of the negotiations after less than an hour.
Afterwards, the Iranian team of nuclear negotiators, headed by the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi in the absence of Zarif, had a meeting with the representatives of Germany, France and Britain (E3) later in the evening.
And later on, the Iranian negotiators attended a bilateral meeting with the US delegation, which is now underway in Vienna.
According to Araqchi, the negotiations are expected to continue at the level of deputies foreign minister of the seven participating countries, albeit without Zarif and Ashton.
The talks, expected to extend into Wednesday, began on Tuesday morning at the United Nations complex in Vienna. The venue was to shift later to a luxury city center hotel where the chief negotiators were staying.
It is the first round of high-level negotiations since a November interim deal, clinched between Iran and the G5+1.
On November 24, 2013, the two sides signed an interim six-month deal on Tehran’s nuclear program in the Swiss city of Geneva.
The breakthrough deal (the Joint Plan of Action), which has come into effect since January 20, stipulates that over the course of six months, Iran and the six countries will draw up a comprehensive nuclear deal which will lead to a lifting of the whole sanctions on Iran.
