Baku, Azerbaijan, March 4
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
The nuclear negotiations are being held within the guidelines of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, head of the Research Center of Iran's Expediency Council, Ali Akbar Velayati said, the country's IRNA news agency reported on March 3.
Velayati, who is an advisor to the Supreme Leader on foreign affairs underlined that Iran is committed to the nuclear agreements with P5+1.
Iran and the P5+1(Russia, China, France, Germany, UK and the US) held meetings in Vienna in February to work on a comprehensive deal. The two sides signed an interim deal on Iran's nuclear energy program in Geneva on November 24, 2013. The deal took effect on Jan. 20.
Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to its $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas, if the country fulfills the deal's terms, which offer sanctions relief in exchange for steps on curbing the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran and P5+1 aim to continue their talks to reach a final agreement to fully resolve the decade-old dispute over the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy program.
The next round of negotiations will begin with a meeting between technical experts from the P5+1 and Iran on March 5.
This will also be followed by a meeting between EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna on March 17.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical research instead.