Iran’s Salehi, US’ Moniz hold technical nuclear talks in Lausanne
Iran and the US have held fresh technical nuclear talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi and US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met on Wednesday morning as part of efforts between Iran and the P5+1 aimed at reaching mutual understanding in the negotiations.
This is while the experts and deputies of the P5+1 and Iran are also reported to be holding separate discussions and consultations among themselves.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius left the talks on Tuesday night to attend a cabinet meeting, according to an official in the French delegation. “He will come back as soon as it’s useful,” the official said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is also said to have departed Lausanne.
Speaking to reporters early on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described the ongoing talks as “very good” and hoped that the parties attending the negotiations could arrive at the expected understanding on Wednesday.
“I hope that we can finalize the work on Wednesday and hopefully start the process of drafting (a final deal)”, Zarif said.
Regarding the removal of the sanctions against Iran, a senior member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic and the six other states – France, Britain, the US, Russia, China and Germany – had resolved “many aspects” of the issue of the sanctions, but “some limited” issues still remained.
Hamid Ba’eedinejad, who is the director general for political and international security affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, told Press TV in Lausanne that the Islamic Republic and its negotiating partners were now concentrating on those remaining issues regarding the sanctions.
Iran and the P5+1 group are working intensely to narrow their differences and hammer out a final comprehensive accord over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by the end of June 2015.
