Iran’s Nuclear Negotiating Team Heads to Vienna

Headed by Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif, the negotiating team include Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi, Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi, Foreign Ministry's Director General for the Political and International Affairs Hamid Baeidinejad, Foreign Minister's Legal Adviser Davoud Mohammadnia, Mohammad Amiri, the director general for the safeguards affairs at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), and Pejman Rahimian, Chief of Staff at the AEOI.

Contrary to the previous rounds of Vienna negotiations, the fifth round is scheduled to kick off with a working lunch of Iranian top negotiator Zarif and the European Union Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton.

During their meeting in Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN and other International Organizations in Vienna, the top negotiators are to decide on how to start and proceed the fifth round of Vienna negotiations.

During this round, Iran’s proposal package to the representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will be discussed. The package was provided by Zarif during the previous round of negotiations.

The negotiators also plan to discuss drafting the final and comprehensive nuclear deal.

Through last round of Vienna talks, the two sides did not manage to come to a conclusion in drafting the text of final deal, as the difference of opinion over the number of Iran’s centrifuges was a major dispute among others.

While the Iranian negotiators stressed on having tens of thousands of centrifuges, the sextet proposed a few hundred or at most a few thousand centrifuges, which is far behind Iran’s nuclear rights.