Kazakhstan ready to host next round of Iran-P5+1 talks

Kazakhstan has expressed its readiness to host the next round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program, which is scheduled to be held in December.

“Kazakhstan said the country was ready to host P5+1-Iran talks,” read a joint statement issued after US-Kazakh talks led by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrisov on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan calls on both negotiating sides to keep working “in a constructive way to attain a comprehensive accord in 2015,” the statement said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the country’s negotiators are working to determine a date in December for the resumption of talks, adding that the next round of negotiations will be held on the deputy level.

In their last round of talks, Iran and the P5+1 countries — the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany — wrapped up a week of intense closed-door nuclear negotiations in the Austrian capital of Vienna on November 24. The negotiations aimed to tackle the remaining obstacles that exist in the way of reaching a final agreement.

At the end of the talks, the two sides decided to extend their discussions for seven more months. They also agreed that the interim deal they had signed in the Swiss city of Geneva last November remain in place during the remainder of the negotiations until July 1, 2015.