Baku, Azerbaijan, June 4
By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend:
Nobody has ever said that Iran's military program needs to be on the agenda of the nuclear talks, the U.S. State Department's Persian-speaking spokesman Alan Eyre said.
It's written in the text of the interim nuclear deal that between the first and final steps, there would be several other steps discussing different issues such as the UN Security Council's resolutions in order to reach a desirable conclusion for them, Eyre told Trend on June 4.
The spokesman went on to say that one of the UN Security Council's resolutions is about any missile capable of carrying atomic warheads.
Meanwhile Abbas Araqchi, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister said on May 21 that the other side insists on putting the issue of Iranian missiles on the agenda of the nuclear talks.
Senior Iranian officials have repeatedly announced that they will not negotiate over the country's defense system including the missile power with the P5+1 group.
Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the U.S., China, Russia, France and the UK - plus Germany) wrapped up their latest round of high-level nuclear talks in Vienna on May 16 without any results.
Tehran and the six world powers have been discussing ways to iron out differences and start drafting a final deal on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
In November 2013, the two sides signed an interim six-month nuclear deal in Geneva that came into force on January 20.
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