Iran to Have Bilateral Meetings with G5+1 Members This Week

(FNA)- Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi announced on Saturday that the Iranian team of negotiators is due to take part in bilateral meetings with some Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) members this week.

"Bilateral talks will be held between the delegations of Iran and some G5+1 member states at the level of deput chief negotiators this week and before the start of the next round of the negotiations between Tehran and the six world powers in Vienna on June 16-20," Araqchi, who is also Iran's deputy chief negotiator in the nuclear talks with the sextet, told FNA today.

He said that representatives of the seven nations are still discussing the proper date and venue for the multilateral talks, but stressed that these discussions will soon bear results.

Meantime, an informed source told FNA today that the Iranian team of negotiators is due to meet their US counterparts in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday followed by a meeting with the Russian delegation in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday.

The source added that the Iranian negotiators are also in talks with some other members of the G5+1 to arrange bilateral meetings with them as well.

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.

The next round of multilateral talks between the senior negotiators of the seven nations will be held in Vienna on June 16 to 20.

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