Strasbourg, 24/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - The E3+3 (France, United Kingdom, Germany, US, Russia and China) and Iran reached an agreement on Thursday 24 May to hold a new cycle of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme, following the two days of discussions in Baghdad. One diplomatic source explained that other talks would take place but did not provide any additional information on this issue. Negotiations were only expected to take place on Wednesday 23 May but ultimately continued on 24 May too, although proved difficult because Iran considered that the conditions for continuing the dialogue were no longer in place. A senior Iranian official described the climate of Thursday's discussions as “very bad”. The EU high representative, Catherine Ashton, and the head of the Iranian delegation, Saïd Jalili, held three bilateral meetings during the day.
Speaking earlier on Thursday, an Iranian official underlined that “the basis for a new round of negotiations is not yet in place unless in the next two hours the two parties reach an agreement”. He considered that they did not have enough points in common to pursue the discussions. The Iranians, however, said that this did not appear very important to the West and that it wanted to continue negotiations at any cost, “which is not our position”. (CG/transl.fl)