Iran’s Zarif, EU’s Ashton Meet in Second Day of Vienna Talks


Iran’s Zarif, EU’s Ashton Meet in Second Day of Vienna Talks

TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who leads the team of Iranian negotiators, and the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who represents the six world powers, met in Vienna as talks between Iran and world powers continue for second day.

The two top negotiators’ talks started this afternoon as their deputies wrapped up the morning session.

Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann said earlier that the talks between Iran and the six major world powers (also known as E3+3, P5+1) are serious.

He refrained from providing further details or an exact time for an end to the ongoing talks.

Mann further said that Vienna talks are within the framework of the deal signed between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, France, Britain and China plus Germany).

The meeting between Zarif and Ashton came after two-hour talks between the Iranian side, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi and the G5+1, represented by European Union Deputy Foreign Policy Chief Helga Maria Schmid on behalf of the other side.

It is the first round of high-level negotiations since a November interim deal, clinched between Iran and the G5+1.

On November 24, 2013, the two sides signed an interim six-month deal on Tehran’s nuclear program in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The breakthrough deal (the Joint Plan of Action), which has come into effect since January 20, stipulates that over the course of six months, Iran and the six countries will draw up a comprehensive nuclear deal which will lead to a lifting of the whole sanctions on Iran.

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