UNITED NATIONS, September 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Iran and the P5+1 group (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) are working in different formats, having raised the level of security, an informed diplomatic source said on Saturday.
The sides are working on a bilateral basis as well but no plenary meeting is expected on Saturday, the source told ITAR-TASS.
The sides have agreed not to disclose the details of the negotiations and to limit their contacts with the media.
The source said the process was fragile and needed to be handled carefully as the sides were looking for compromises.
Political directors from Iran and the P5+1 group met in New York on Friday, beginning a new round of talks on the Iranian nuclear programme.
The head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sa said Russia would “continue to work with its partners in order to lay the groundwork for compromises”.
“The recent contacts, including bilateral ones, with the Iranians were quite promising and showed that the Iranian delegation is preparing for the upcoming round most fundamentally,” Ryabkov said, adding that the six world powers were preparing as well.
“We will continue working towards the result,” Ryabkov said.
The Arak reactor and uranium enrichment are the most complex issues to be addressed at the new round of talks, the diplomat said.
Among the most challenging issues he named “uranium enrichment, the heavy-water reactor at Arak, verification, and the closure of the so-called military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear programme. Four blocks”.
At the same time, he said Moscow was not completely confident that Iran and six world powers can work out an agreement by November 24.
He said, however, that there was no pessimism and the sides had to continue working.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier this month he was hopeful that the decision on the Iranian nuclear issue would be reached by November 24.
The interim nuclear deal made on November 24, 2013, called for taking the first step of reciprocal actions to prove good faith in a six-month period to be followed by negotiations for a comprehensive agreement, according to which the Western governments will acknowledge the Iranian nuclear programme as civilian.
The deal was called the first step to be followed by a comprehensive agreement, which, on the one hand, should resolve the international community’s concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme and, on the other hand, remove economic sanctions that slow down Iran’s economic development.
The agreement reached by and between Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva last year became effective on January 20, 2014.