Iran, UN nuclear agency to settle outstanding issues: Araqchi
A member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team says Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seek to resolve the outstanding issues in their cooperation.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi told the IRIB that he plans to hold a meeting with the IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano, in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Tuesday.
The meeting would be in line with cooperation between Iran and the UN nuclear agency, and will aim to settle the outstanding issues so as to pave the way for further progress in cooperation, he said.
Araqchi referred to another meeting between Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the IAEA chief on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 7, and said the two sides had agreed on more high-level talks.
The Iranian diplomat also expressed hope that the talks with the IAEA would further strengthen bilateral cooperation.
“Hopefully, we will be able to settle issues with the agency as soon as possible in the course of progress in [Iran’s nuclear] negotiations with the P5+1 [countries],” he added.
IAEA on Iran
In its latest report on February 19, the IAEA said Iran has lived up to its obligations to limit certain aspects of its nuclear program under an interim deal Tehran signed with the P5+1 group in the Swiss city of Geneva in November 2013.
The IAEA report also highlighted that Iran has stopped enrichment in the IR-5 centrifuges located at the Natanz nuclear facility.
The report, however, said Tehran has not addressed all the questions the agency has raised regarding the country’s nuclear energy program.
Iran-P5+1 talks
Iran and the P5+1 group – Britain, France, China, Russia, and the United States plus Germany – have been holding talks to resolve the Western dispute over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
The scale of Iran’s uranium enrichment and the timetable for the removal of anti-Iran sanctions are seen as the major stumbling blocks in the talks.
The next round of nuclear talks between the Iranian negotiators and representatives of the P5+1 group of countries will be held in the Swiss city of Geneva on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.
