Brussels, 28/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 28 March, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced that nuclear talks between his country and the E3+3 (Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, China and Russia) would resume on Friday 13 April, but the place for the negotiations is still to be decided upon “over the next few days”. This announcement was then confirmed to AFP by a European diplomat, who added that “the place for the talks to be held in has not yet been announced”. On this point, “Turkey has stated that it is prepared to host the negotiations and remains one of the options. My personal opinion is that Istanbul would be the best place”, the Iranian minister explained. He added that the E3+3 group has made a proposal on location for the meeting, “which is being looked into by (Saïd) Jalili, the head of the Iranian nuclear negotiators”. The E3+3 has insisted several times that the negotiations should take place on neutral territory. According to a European diplomat, places other than Turkey have been considered, such as Geneva or Vienna, the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In a letter dated 6 March, the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs suggested to Jalili that negotiations resume on the Iranian nuclear programme, adding that the date and place for the resumed discussions should be decided on “as soon as possible”. This letter was in reply to Iran's response, on 14 February, to an initial letter from Catherine Ashton dated 21 October 2011, which detailed the conditions required for talks to begin again. In this letter, the Iranian negotiator referred for the first time to the possibility of discussing Iranian nuclear issues. The last round of negotiations, in January 2011, broke down. (CG/transl.fl)