MOSCOW/ROME, June 12 /ITAR-TASS/. Some fragments of a would-be comprehensive agreement on the settlement of the Iranian nuclear problem may be agreed at a next round of talks between the P5+1 group of international mediators [the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany] and Iran in Vienna on June 16, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said after his meeting with the Iranian delegation in Rome.
“Chances are getting higher. It inspires some optimism but requires additional efforts,” he said, when asked whether the next round could yield any agreed fragments. The previous meeting between the six international mediators and Iran in May failed to do that. “We will do our best to make it happen. We have always helped such work at different stages. Before an intermediate agreement was reached in November 2013, we had offered several such initiatives and now we shall continue this work,” he said.
In the run-up to the fifth round of Vienna talks, the Iranian delegation had a number of bilateral meetings with members of the P5+1 group - with representatives from the United States, the European Union, France, and Russia. An Iranian-German meeting is planned for Sunday, June 15, in Tehran.
Ryabkov noted that participants in the talks demonstrated a serious approach to the new Vienna round. “As far as we can judge, the Iranian delegation has done a lot of work jointly with the colleagues from the United States and France in Geneva over the past two days. We did not take part in those discussions. The ethics of talks in the P5+1 format provides for an open dialogue, with parties sharing information with each other. But as far as our contact with the Iranian colleagues had a different task, we di not touch upon what had happened in Geneva,” he noted.
“When we all gather together next week, everything will be clarified. But in general, there is very positive and serious expectations,” he stressed.