Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 2
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran and P5+1 will hold the next round of nuclear negotiations in Omani capital city of Muscat on Nov.11, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said, the official IRNA news agency reported Nov. 2.
Araqchi said that the meeting will be held after two days of a trilateral meeting of Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton which is scheduled for Nov. 9-10.
The Iranian top diplomat said that the issues concerning enrichment and sanctions will be discussed in trilateral meetings.
Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) held their latest round of talks in Vienna in mid-October to work out a final agreement aimed at ending the long-standing dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.
Last November, the two sides 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 United States, France, Britain and Germany would like the number of enrichment centrifuges Iran maintains to be in the low thousands, while Tehran wants to keep tens of thousands in operation. It now has about 19,000 installed, of which about 10,000 are spinning to refine uranium.