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12 January 2015 - 11:42

US Secretary of State John Kerry hopes his upcoming meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif would lay the groundwork for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program to move forward further.

“The meeting is calculated to take stock, number one, and to provide direction to our teams, number two, and to hopefully be able to accelerate the process to make greater progress,” Kerry told reporters on a visit to India on Monday.

Kerry and Zarif are scheduled to meet in the Swiss city of Geneva on Wednesday prior to the bilateral meeting of their deputies.

Nuclear negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 group – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – wrapped up their latest round of talks on Tehran’s nuclear program in Geneva on December 17, 2014.

The three-day Geneva discussions were held almost three weeks after Tehran and the six countries failed to reach a final agreement by a November 24 deadline despite making some progress.

The two sides agreed to extend their discussions for seven more months until July 1, 2015. They also agreed that the interim deal they had signed in Geneva in November 2013 should remain in place during the negotiations.

News ID 187487