Iran, Sextet Likely to Hold Ministerial Meeting: Negotiator
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An upcoming plenary session of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers, slated for September in New York, will likely be held at the level of foreign ministers, a top Iranian negotiator said.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi, who is also a senior member of the country’s nuclear team, told reporters on Monday that the meeting of foreign ministers at the forthcoming sesseion remains a possibility.
“Nothing has been fixed so far,” he added.
According to earlier reports, representatives from Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) are expected to hold a gathering on the sidelines of the upcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York for talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The 69th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 69) will convene at the UN headquarters in New York on September 16.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Araqchi said a number of “bilateral meetings” between Iran and members of the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) will precede the September gathering.
The deputy minister, however, reiterated that no details of any plan has been confirmed yet, neither the bilateral meetings nor a ministerial one.
“In the next round of negotiations, we will have various questions on the table. We should address all of them and see whether we will be able to advance the talks,” Araqchi explained.
On July 18, after more than two weeks of intensive diplomatic negotiations in Vienna, Iran and the six nations agreed to continue talks for another four months.
The two sides decided to extend the nuclear talks until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal. The four-month extension of the talks began on July 21.
