Araqchi: Talks with Russians helpful, to continue in Vienna

Top member of Iranian nuclear negotiation team Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said Wednesday night bilateral talks with Italy were helpful and consultations with them will continue in Vienna.
Araqchi: Talks with Russians helpful, to continue in Vienna
“Consultations on Iran’s nuclear program with the Russians have always existed continually, and now at the threshold of the next round of Vienna negotiations they are of greater significance,” said the Iranian deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs at the end of Iranian nuclear negotiation’s bilateral talks with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Rome Airport.

He added that in those talks the issues discussed in nuclear talks between Iran and the 5+1 G were consulted and discussed.

Araqchi added that the Tehran-Moscow consultations will also continue in Vienna.

In Geneva, the Iranian delegation had bilateral negotiations with the US delegation, headed by the US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns in the presence of the EU Foreign Policy Advisor Helga Schmidt for eleven and a half hours on lifting of the sanctions and the nuclear issue.

The Iranian delegation also had a three hour and fifteen minute bilateral talk with the new French representative in 5+1G, Nicholas de Riviere at the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the European Headquarters of the UN in Geneva.

Araqchi told IRNA in Geneva that the talks with the French delegation were held in a positive atmosphere and were useful at the threshold of the next round of Vienna negotiations with the six world powers.

“In these talks the topics of the nuclear issues were consulted and such bilateral consultation will also continue in Vienna,” he said.

On Iran’s bilateral talks with the Americans, Araqchi said that the negotiations were intensive and tough, but they were held amid a positive atmosphere.

The deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs reiterated, “Ideas were exchanged finely, which was a fruitful practice at the threshold of the next round of negotiations in Vienna on June, 16.

Prior to the next round of negotiations in Vienna, the Iranian delegation will also hold a round of bilateral consultations with Germany in Tehran on June 15.

The German representative in 5+1G is scheduled to visit Tehran for participation in a Foreign Ministry’s Political and International Studies seminar, where the two sides will negotiate on the nuclear issue.

Araqchi had before the beginning of this round of bilateral talks told the reporters that the gaps between the Iranian stands and those of the six powers still exist on various issues adding that serious efforts are needed to fill them.

Referring to the next round of Iran-5+1G nuclear negotiations in Vienna, June 16-20, he said, “We expect to be able to enter the details in this round of talks and to begin drafting the final agreement’s text; the expectation we also had of the Vienna 4 negotiations.”

Araqchi expressed hope that during the next round of talks in Vienna 5, that objective will be achieved so that the differences over the general issues will be approximated and the details will be focused, which he said is still optimistic.

The Geneva and Rome political and technical talks are held after the Geneva 4 negotiations which ended without achieving any tangible results. Before these talks, too, the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton had held talks on May 26-27 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Iran-5+1G technicians’ meeting, too, was held simultaneously with the seasonal meeting of the IAEA board of governors on June 5 and 5 in Vienna, Austria.

Since Iran and the 5+1G representatives have held political and technical talks in various levels before the beginning of their official negotiations on June 16 it is expected that the two sides’ viewpoints have got closer to each other so that they will be able to begin drafting the final text of their agreement during their Vienna 5 negotiations.

Also the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said Wednesday that the amount of annual production of uranium in Arak Heavy Water Reactor which used to be around 9 to 10 kilograms annually will be decreased to less than one kilogram.

“We are currently busy redesigning that reactor to arrange for that alteration,” said Ali Akbar Salehi in response to a question posed by IRNA Wednesday night on the sidelines of a commemoration ceremony of a scientific institute’s top professors.

Referring to the terms of the Geneva Agreement, alias the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), he said that in accordance with the JPA, Iran’s enrichment programs are defined proportionately with the country’s demands.