Brussels, 15/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - During the evening of Tuesday 14 October, the spokesperson for High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton announced that Ashton and the political leaders of the E3+3 countries (Germany, France, UK and China, US and Russia) will meet Iran's Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday 16 October to discuss the Iranian nuclear programme. The meeting will take place in Vienna.
A Russian deputy minister for foreign affairs, Sergei Riabkov, described this meeting as a “mini-round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme”, according to Russian news agency Tass. “If there is political resolve, we have a chance of reaching an agreement by 24 November” (the negotiation deadline), he said.
On 14 October, Ashton met Zarif for a bilateral meeting of more than two and half hours. They were joined by US Secretary of State John Kerry on 15 October.
The negotiations are still stumbling on the issue of Iran's future uranium enrichment capacity and on the timetable for the total lifting of the international economic sanctions. The last round of negotiations, which lasted 10 days at the end of September, came to an end without significant progress (see EUROPE 11165). According to a US source quoted by French news agency AFP on 14 October, the disagreements were diminishing overall but continued to be significant on several points. (CG)