Ahead of the talks, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili, who leads the Islamic Republic’s negotiating delegation, and EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, held a meeting on Wednesday.
Iran and the P5+1 group say they have come to the negotiating table with new offers.
Throughout the first day of talks on Tuesday, the P5+1 reportedly demanded that Iran stop enriching uranium up to 20 percent, ship out its stockpile of enriched uranium and shut down the Fordow nuclear facility near the central city of Qom. In return, the Western governments would ease gold, petrochemical and banking sanctions against Iran.
Iran and the P5+1 group have held several rounds of talks with the main focus on Iran’s nuclear energy program. The last round of negotiations was held in Moscow in June 2012.
The United States, the Israeli regime and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. Over the false allegation, Washington and the European Union have imposed several rounds of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran refutes the allegation and argues that as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
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