Tehran, Washington never met in Baghdad: Iranian delegation member

A member of the Iranian negotiating team in Baghdad has denied any talks between the country’s top nuclear negotiator and the US representative during the latest round of Iran and P5+1 talks.

“The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council [Saeed Jalili] and the US representative have not held any meetings or talks,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IRNA.

The remarks came in reaction to a report by AFP, claiming that Jalili and the head of the US delegation Wendy Sherman had a “chat” and “brief encounter” after talks between Iran and the P5+1 in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

According to sources close to the Islamic Republic’s delegation, Iranian negotiators rejected multiple requests from the US for bilateral negotiations during the Istanbul talks in April.

Iran and the P5+1 -Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany- wrapped up their meeting in Baghdad on Thursday after two days of negotiations.

The Iranian negotiating delegation was headed by Jalili and the delegations of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany were headed by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Both sides agreed to hold another round of talks in Moscow on June 18-19.

Tehran and the P5+1 have already held three rounds of talks, one in Geneva in December 2010, and two in Istanbul in January 2011 and in April 2012.