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Iran's nuclear program

Iran-Sextet talks may change location - media

The idea of changing the venue emerged following an article in the Wall Street Journal about computer espionage against participants in the negotiation process of Iran’s future nuclear programme

TEHRAN, June 13. /TASS/. Further negotiations between Iran and the Sextet may change the location, IRNA reported on Saturday.

"Appreciating the importance and confidentiality of the negotiations, as well as the close date of expected final agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme, parties tot eh negotiation process are discussing changing the venue from Vienna for another city and country," the news agency quoted a source at the Iranian delegation to the Austrian capital city.

The idea of changing the venue emerged following an article in the Wall Street Journal on June 10 about computer espionage against participants in the negotiation process of Iran’s future nuclear programme. The newspaper referred to a report from "the Moscow-based firm, Kaspersky Lab ZAO," which "checked millions of computers world-wide and three luxury European hotels popped up. The other hotels tested-thousands in all-were clean. Researchers at the firm weren’t sure what to make of the results. Then they realized what the three hotels had in common.

"Each was infiltrated by the virus before hosting high-stakes negotiations between Iran and world powers over curtailing Tehran’s nuclear program.

"The spyware, the firm has now concluded, was an improved version of Duqu, a virus first identified by cybersecurity experts in 2011, according to a Kaspersky report and outside security experts. Current and former U.S. officials and many cybersecurity experts say they believe Duqu was designed to carry out Israel’s most sensitive intelligence collection," the Wall Street Journal wrote.

Thus, IRNA reports, Iran’s embassies in Vienna and Berne sent letters to foreign authorities of Austria and Switzerland, where they express major concerns about security of negotiations at hotels in Vienna and in Geneva. Besides, they asked to keep Iranian representatives updated on investigation into the incident.

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