Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU envoy Catherine Ashton started trilateral nuclear talks in the Omani capital on Monday morning.
The three-way talks, the first round of which started Sunday morning, focused on the main differences in the course of securing a comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
The two-day negotiations in Oman's capital are a prelude to another round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the Group 5+1 slated for November 18 in Vienna.
Earlier on Sunday and before joining Kerry and Ashton, Zarif told reporters that Iran and the other side still remain far apart on some issues.
As regards the differences, Zarif said the two sides are divided on the extent of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and time frame of lifting anti-Iran sanctions.
On November 24, 2013, Iran and the G5+1 (alternatively known as the P5+1 or E3+3) signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva.
The Geneva deal (the Joint Plan of Action) came into effect in January and expired in July, when the parties decided to extend negotiations until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final, comprehensive deal that would end a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.