Iran, G5+1 start talks in Geneva

The representatives of Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) started talks on the nuclear standoff between the two sides in a new round of hectic diplomatic effort which has already bought the two sides to meet each other twice in Geneva in the last several weeks. The Thursday meeting which is being held at the UN offices in Geneva kicked off at 11:00 (Geneva time). Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who heads Tehran’s team of negotiators, and EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, who presides over the delegations of the six world powers, had a working breakfast earlier in the morning to confer on the latest developments in the talks between Tehran and the G5+1. Michael Mann, the spokesman for Ashton, announced earlier that Iran and the world powers will take part in the upcoming talks in Geneva at the level of deputy foreign ministers and with no change in their delegations. “Representatives of the Group 5+1 will take part in Geneva meeting with the same arrangement,” Mann told FNA on Sunday. Mann recalled that the first round of talks between Iran and the West was held at the foreign ministerial level in New York, the second round at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Geneva and the third round is also slated to be held at level of deputy foreign ministers in Geneva. He said that this time, like the previous 10 rounds of the talks, Ashton will head the negotiating teams of the Group 5+1, comprising the deputy foreign ministers of the six world powers, and her deputy Helga Schmidt will accompany her in the upcoming Geneva talks. According to Mann, US Undersecretary of State and top negotiator in the nuclear talks with Iran Wendy Sherman, former British Envoy to Tehran Simon Gass, French foreign ministry political director Jacques Audibert, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and German diplomat Hans Dieter Luca will take part in the upcoming meeting with Iran. Also, on the Iranian side, Deputy Foreign Minister and Senior Negotiator Seyed Abbas Araqchi, Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi, Foreign Ministry's Director General for Political and International Affairs Hamid Bae’eidinejad, Foreign Minister's Legal Adviser Davoud Mohammadnia and Director General for Defensive Affairs at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Amiri will accompany Zarif. The last meeting of the seven countries was in Geneva and lasted for two days on October 15 and 16. Both Tehran and the delegations of the G5+1 voiced satisfaction in the outcomes of the Geneva meeting and decided to send their experts to two days of talks in Vienna on October 30 and 31 to discuss details of Iran's new proposal for soothing the crisis. Iran and the six world powers agreed in their third session of talks on October 15 to follow up on the nuclear negotiations on November 7 and 8. At the end of the negotiations, Ashton hailed the nuclear negotiations as the “most detailed” and most “substantive” ones ever held between the two sides.