Iran: Next expert-level nuclear talks to be held in New York
Iranian Deputy FM says negotiations with P5+1 slated for May 5-9 ahead of high-level talks in Vienna.
By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERSIran nuclear talks delegate at table 370(photo credit: REUTERS/Fabrice Coffrini/Pool )
The next round of expert-level nuclear talks between Iran and six world power were set to be held in New York in early may, Iranian media on Sunday reported Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi as saying.The senior Iranian negotiator in talks with the P5+1 powers said the meeting would take place from May 5-9 on the sidelines of a session on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Araqchi said the negotiations would precede a new round of high-level talks scheduled for May 13 in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.According to the official state news agency IRNA, Iran and the six world powers will begin work drafting a long-term settlement of Iran's disputed nuclear programme at the expert-level talks next month.During the May 5-9 meeting, the P5+1 world powers and Iran will start "writing draft of comprehensive agreements which will be a complex and difficult work," IRNA quoted Araghchi as saying.Hamid Baeedinejad, Director General for the Political and International Affairs Department of Foreign Ministry, will head Iran's team at talks on the sidelines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review preliminary committee meeting, IRNA said.The P5+1 powers have agreed a July 20 deadline with Iran to clinch a long-term deal that would allow a gradual lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran over its atomic programmer.Tehran denies using its declared civilian atomic energy programme as a front for covertly developing the means to make nuclear weapons, saying it seeks only electricity from its enrichment of uranium.Under a breakthrough preliminary agreement that took effect on Jan. 20, Iran halted some aspects of its nuclear programmer in exchange for a limited easing of international sanctions that have laid low the major oil producer's economy.In its monthly update, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a pivotal role in verifying that Iran is living up to its part of the accord, said that Iran so far was undertaking the agreed steps to curb its nuclear programme.
