Brussels, 17/10/2013 (Agence Europe) -The UK and USA welcomed the Iranian approach at the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme on 15-16 October, but in Russia's view there is nothing to sing about.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed “the more positive approach” taken by the Iranian government, saying that there were “serious exchanges” with Iran on issues of concern. “Diplomats have for the first time begun more substantive discussions with Iran on how to address the international community's serious concerns”, he added, hoping that the negotiations “will soon lead to concrete results”. “There is a great deal of hard work ahead but we must not waste this opportunity”, he said.
The USA, speaking through the White House spokesperson, Jay Carney, also welcomed the Iranian approach, which it described as serious and substantive - the likes of which Carney said they had not seen in the past. No one should expect a breakthrough from one day to the next, however, he said, adding that this was a question of complicated, technical issues.
Nevertheless, in the view of Russia's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Serguei Riabkov, although “the results were better than those in Almaty” during the last discussions, “this does not guarantee later progress. There is nothing to sing about. We could have worked better.” In Riabkov's opinion, the distance to be run in order to bring the positions of Iran and the E3+3 closer together “can be counted in kilometres, while the progress made on this route can be counted in steps equivalent to half a metre”. He described the negotiations as “difficult, sometimes tense, and sometimes unpredictable from the point of view of the results”, saying that the main difficulty is the lack of trust between the two parties. (CG/transl.fl)