Speaking to reporters after his Friday meeting with the European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Mohammad Javad Zarif said, “At the meeting with Ms. Ashton we agreed to hold the next round of Iran’s nuclear talks with the P5+1 (permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) in Vienna on February 18.”
Previous media reports suggested that the next round of the negotiations would be held in New York in mid-February to set the stage for achieving a permanent agreement.
Iran and the Sextet– the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – inked an interim deal on Iran’s nuclear energy program in Geneva, Switzerland, last November. The deal came to force on January 20th.
Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities as a confidence-building measure, and the world powers undertook to provide Iran with some sanctions relief and release more than USD 4 billion of Tehran’s oil revenues.
Meanwhile, Director of Russian Foreign Ministry’s Security and Disarmament Department Mikhail Ulyanov said on Friday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no violation by Iran of the November nuclear deal.
The Russian official underscored Iran’s “unprecedented level of cooperation with the IAEA” regarding access “to any facility of interest to the Agency.”
The next round of nuclear talks between Tehran and six world powers will be held in the Austrian capital of Vienna on February 18, says Iran’s foreign minister.
News ID 186200
