Iran, EU, US to Hold Trilateral Meeting in Geneva Monday

 (FNA)- Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi announced on Sunday that he would have a trilateral meeting with his EU and US counterparts in Geneva tomorrow as part of the multilateral efforts made by Iran and the six world powers to resolve their nuclear standoff.

"The tomorrow meeting with the Americans will be trilateral and Helga Schmidt, the deputy of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, will be present there as well," Araqchi told Iran's state-run TV on Sunday.

Asked about the issues to go under discussion at the Monday meeting, he said, "No other issue than the nuclear topics will be discussed with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) and we have always emphasized this fact."

Meantime, Araqchi said since the US is the main supporter and imposer of sanctions against Iran, the issue of embargos will also be discussed in the Geneva meeting which will last for two days.

He said that US Undersecretary of State William Burns will head the American delegation and will be accompanied by his colleague Wendy Sherman, while he and Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, another Iranian deputy foreign minister, will lead the delegation from Tehran.

Araqchi also said that the Iranian team will then meet Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and possibly representatives of other members of the G5+1 on the sidelines of a disarmament conference in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday.

He also said one of the other G5+1 member states is also likely to send a delegation to Tehran next week to do some coordination in bilateral talks with Iranian negotiators before the start of another round of multilateral negotiations between Iran and the world powers in Vienna from June 16 to 20.

Iran and the six world powers held their fourth round of talks in Vienna on May 14-16. The seven nations have been discussing ways to iron out differences and start drafting a final deal that would end the West’s dispute with Iran over the country’s nuclear energy program.

Iran said there has been no tangible progress in writing the draft text of the agreement and it blamed the US for the failure, saying Washington has made excessive demands beyond the agreements made in the previous rounds of talks.

Expert teams from Iran and the six world powers held two days of talks in Vienna on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the technical aspects of the negotiations.

The talks were headed by Hamid Ba'eedinejad, the director general for political and international affairs at Iran's Foreign Ministry, and Stephen Clement, an aide to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Ba'eedinejad and Clement also met on the sidelines of a meeting between Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ashton in Istanbul on May 26.

In November 2013, the two sides signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva that came into force on January 20.