Iran, US set to deliberate on nuclear issue
Updated: 2014-06-10 07:30
By Agence France-Presse in Geneva (China Daily)
|
|||||||||
Representatives from Iran and the United States were poised to meet in Geneva on Monday for their first full-scale official talks in decades aimed at bridging the gaps in negotiations for a deal on Teheran's disputed nuclear program.
Neither the location nor the program of the two-day meeting has been announced. However, the main issue is expected to be finding a route toward an eventual lifting of sanctions against Iran.
Abbas Araqchi, a vice-foreign minister who will lead the Iranian delegation, said on Sunday that the tete-a-tete with US officials was essential as the negotiations are delicately poised.
The P5+1 group of permanent members of the Security Council - the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany - have long sought to reach a settlement over Iran's nuclear program. But with the last round of talks in Vienna in May yielding next to no progress, there has been concern that the P5+1 process was stalling.
The announcement on Saturday of the US-Iran meetings in Geneva came as a surprise, but appeared to confirm the need for secondary steps to close big gaps between Teheran's and Washington's positions.
"We have always had bilateral discussions with the United States in the margin of the P5+1 group, but since the talks have entered a serious phase, we want to have separate consultations," Araqchi said, quoted by the IRNA news agency.
"Most of the sanctions were imposed by the US, and other countries from the P5+1 group were not involved," he added, in a telling remark about how the US stance remains Iran's main concern.
A senior US administration official said on Saturday that the Geneva talks would "give us a timely opportunity to exchange views in the context of the next P5+1 round in Vienna," between June 16-20. The talks are aimed at securing a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear activities, which the West suspects is aimed at developing weapons, but which Iran insists is for peaceful purposes.
After decades of hostility, Iran and the US made the first tentative steps toward rapprochement after the election of self-declared moderate Hassan Rouhani as president last June.
An interim deal struck in November led the US and its partners to release $7 billion from frozen funds in return for a slowdown in Iran's uranium enrichment.
But a long-term accord, ahead of a July 20 deadline, remains a long way off, experts say.
Cyrus Nasseri, a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team when it was led by Rouhani between 2003 and 2005, told AFP the US role as "the main interlocutor" explained the need for direct talks, and said Washington had to drop its "stubbornly recalcitrant" outlook.
"It's all a matter of whether the US will be prepared to take the next step to accept a reasonable solution which will be win-win for both," with Iran allowed to maintain a uranium enrichment program, he said.
"The US has to bite the bullet after 10 years of wrongful accusations. It has to accept Iran will at the end of day, no matter how the settlement is made, have peaceful nuclear fuel production."
- Asian Americans see moving up US corporate ladder as difficult
- Expat's experiment turns into anti-pollution business
- Miss Nevada Nia Sanchez crowned as 63rd Miss USA
- Youths begin Internships
- Qingdao native aims to make sailing history
- History-making game recalled
- Peking Opera charms New York City
- CUAA hosts basketball tournament in NYC
Most Viewed
Editor's Picks
My China Story: Meeting the master |
Tongues tied around tatu-bola |
A market that's not such a hot property |
Tough regime cranks out test winners |
Some lab animals get reprieve from testing |
Racing to a new prosperity |
Today's Top News
US pianist releases Chinese piano music album
Russia warns against military buildup by NATO
Iran, US set to deliberate on nuclear issue
UN asked to weigh in on S China Sea
Virginia's governor deepens China ties
Experts take aim at 'biased' Pentagon report on China
Baidu gets ex-Google scientist Ng in race for AI research
Chinese navy to join 2014 RIMPAC naval drill
US Weekly
Geared to go |
The place to be |