BRUSSELS, September 01, /ITAR-TASS/. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday he was hopeful that the decision on the Iranian nuclear issue would be reached by November 24.
Speaking after a meeting with Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Zarif expressed hope that given the readiness and political will demonstrated by the sides the solution could be reached within three months.
Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) will meet at the level of political directors in New York in September, a diplomatic source close to the world powers’ delegation said in August.
He said the choice of the venue was final and the consultations would resume in late September.
The diplomat said the foreign ministers of the six world powers and Iran could join the talks at some point as they attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
The head of the Russian delegation to the talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said Moscow was hoping that the negotiations would resume in September.
“We believe that by the time the talks resume the parties to the process will have made bilateral contacts with their Iranian colleagues in order to … consolidate the basis for further progress,” Ryabkov said.
The talks between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) group, which were supposed to be concluded on July 20, will continue until November 24, a day before the end of a year since the adoption of the Geneva Agreement.
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 (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) in Geneva last year became effective on January 20, 2014.