Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Vienna on Nov. 22, at the 5th day of the Islamic Republic's nuclear talks with P5+1 group, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.
The two sides discussed mutual relations, as well as the remaining disputes in the ongoing nuclear talks, in the meeting which comes only two days before Nov. 24 deadline.
Nov. 24 is set as the deadline to reach a comprehensive nuclear agreement between Iran and the world six powers (the US, UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany.)
Some Iranian media outlets claimed that some countries, including Oman and Austria which hosts the negotiations try to play a meditating role between Iran and the western side over the disputes.
The fifth day of the Iran-P5+1 nuclear talks is scheduled to start with a meeting between deputy foreign ministers of the negotiating teams.
Iranian deputy foreign ministers Majid Takht Ravanchi and Abbas Araqchi are to confer with Sergey Rybakov of Russia. The meeting will be followed by a trilateral discussion attended by the two Iranian diplomats, Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs in the EU's European External Action Service, Helga Schmid and US Under Secretaries of State William Burns and Wendy Sherman.
With the talks entering their fifth day, media reports suggest that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a Chinese delegation will also join the talks today.
Last November, Iran and the P5+1 clinched an interim nuclear accord, which took effect on Jan. 20 and expired six months later. However, the parties agreed to extend their talks until Nov. 24 as they remained divided on a number of key issues.
The US and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies.