Iran nuclear talks on right track - Salehi
(Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on Wednesday he was confident nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers were on the right track and he was optimistic about the final outcome.
"This is a complex issue and we need to be patient but we're on the right track," he said during a televised news conference in Tehran with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"Sometimes the process slows down and sometimes it accelerates but overall I'm optimistic about the final outcome."
Next week Moscow will host nuclear negotiations which are aimed at resolving Western suspicions Iran is trying to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons. Tehran maintains its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only.
In recent days, tensions had threatened to jeopardise cooperation between the two sides over what Iranian negotiators say are necessary preparatory talks ahead of the meeting.
Iran's reasons for wanting prior talks that include technical experts are unclear but Western diplomats have often accused Iran of getting bogged down in process without making progress.
Earlier this week, Iranian negotiators accused the P5+1 group rolling back on agreements made in the last negotiations in Baghdad and failing to prepare for the Moscow meeting.
The P5+1 group is made up of United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.