Iran, P5+1 start 2nd day of talks

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have started the second day of their comprehensive talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The Iranian delegation is headed by Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili and European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also heads representatives from the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany.

The third session of the comprehensive talks started on Saturday.

Deputy head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Abolfazl Zohrehvand, who is a member of the Iranian delegation, said before the third session of the talks that Iran did not want talks for the sake of talks but was looking after fruitful negotiations.

“Iran is not interested in talks for the sake of talks so the negotiations should be one step forward and yield results that lay the groundwork for next talks.”

The first session of the multifaceted negotiations was held on Friday. The second session started late on Friday and continued until early hours of Saturday morning, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Iran says the negotiations, which focused on dialog for cooperation, were held in a positive atmosphere and both sides agreed to continue talks based on agreements reached at the December 6-7 Geneva talks.

Back in December 2010, Iran and the P5+1 wrapped up two days of multifaceted talks in the Swiss city of Geneva, during which both sides agreed to hold the next round of negotiations in Turkey in late January.

Iran has already said that it would take part in the negotiations with a positive standpoint while making it clear that it will not discuss its nuclear program since the issue is outside the jurisdiction of the UN Security Council and should be under the realm of the International Atomic Energy Agency.