World powers are "carefully" examining Iran's proposal which aims to resolve the dispute over its nuclear programme, ahead of a new round of talks on Nov. 7-8, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Wednesday.
Catherine Ashton, who is leading talks with Iran on behalf of six world powers, said the two sides had agreed that nuclear and sanctions experts would meet before the next high-level meeting.
She told a news conference the discussions had been more detailed than at earlier meetings, calling them: "the most detailed (discussions) we have ever had, by, I would say, a long way. Our positions have been set out on a number of issues already."
This as a two-day round of negotiations between Iran and six world powers ended on Wednesday after participants agreed to meet again next month, a Western diplomat said.
Earlier, a western diplomat
said that six world powers and Iran will hold their next round of nuclear talks on Nov. 7-8 in Geneva in a bid to
resolve a decade-old standoff over Tehran's atomic program.
This comes after the Islamic Republic's
foreign minister said in a post on his Facebook account on Wednesday that Iran
and six world powers will hold a follow-up round of nuclear negotiations in a
few weeks' time in Geneva.
Mohammad Javad Zarif made the comment
during the second day of an Oct. 15-16 meeting between Iran and the United
States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China - known as the P5+1 group -
in Geneva aimed at coming up with ways out of a decade-long standoff over
Tehran's disputed atomic activities.
"The talks will continue in a few
weeks in Geneva and during this period the members of the P5+1 will have a
chance to acquire the necessary readiness regarding the details of Iran's plans
and the steps that they must take," Zarif said.
The negotiations between senior officials from the
Islamic state and the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain
got under way around 12:30 a.m. (1030 GMT) at U.N. headquarters in Geneva. The
session had been delayed by a series of bilateral meetings between delegations,
diplomats said.
The powers were expected to press Iran for
details of its proposal outlined on Tuesday. Western diplomats stressed they
wanted Tehran to back up newly conciliatory language with concrete actions by
agreeing to scale back its enrichment of uranium and take verifiable steps to
show it is not covertly trying to develop the means to produce nuclear
bombs.
Reactions:
Russia sees no guarantee of progress in future nuclear talks with Iran, a senior Russian diplomat said after a two-day round of negotiations between Iran and six world powers ended on Wednesday.
"The result is better than in Almaty (talks that happened in April), but it does not guarantee further progress," Sergey Ryabkov, deputy foreign minister and key negotiator on Iran, was cited by Interfax as saying. "There could have been better cooperation."
In turn, Britain said it hoped talks between Iran and six world powers over the country's nuclear program would lead to "concrete" results but that Iran must take the initiative during the negotiations.
"I hope that negotiations will lead soon to concrete results," Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Iran will need to take the necessary first steps on its program and we are ready to take proportionate steps in return."
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REUTERS
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