Iran and the five permanent members of UN Security Council plus Germany gathered in Geneva for the fourth time to discuss the protracted nuclear case of the Islamic Republic.
Today, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif, who is in charge of the nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 since the moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani took the office in the June 14 presidential election, presented a new proposal from Iran during the 1st round of talks and left his deputy Abbas Araghchi in room to lead the Iranian negotiating team.
Iranian diplomats also began lobbying to the P5+1 few days before the talks when Morteza Sarmadi another deputy of the Iranian foreign minister visited Beijing on the eve of the nuclear talks.
Abbas Araqchi also had a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ryabcov on the sidelines of the plenary meeting on Tuesday morning.
Russia and China, as two members of the P5+1 play a key role in balancing the group’s stance towards Iran.
During the talks, having been previously headed by hardliner Saeed Jalili, Iran and the P5+1 failed to reach a consensus even on what topics they should focus on.
Political observers in Tehran maintain that one of the most important obstacles in the former rounds of talks was that the two sides did not have a common objective and the talk sessions proceeded with unrelated, disorderly discussions.
Tehran and the P5+1 members have agreed to keep Iran’s new nuclear proposal which is titled as “An end to a unnecessary crisis, a beginning to a new horizons” as confidential. Iran also kept its Baghdad proposal presented last year to the P5+1 confidential until the group rejected that months later in Almaty.
Iranian diplomat described the major steps Iran has assumed for reaching an agreement with the other side of the talks were said this morning through a Powerpoint presentation by Zarif. The steps can be summarized as being:
– Accepting Iran’s nuclear right for developing, investigating, producing and using nuclear energy;
– Employing truth-finding strategies;
– International cooperation for fulfillment of Iran’s rights;
– Halting all the sanctions imposed on Iran; and
– Cooperation in common interests and concerns.
Both sides of the talks are sending positive signals about the nature of today’s negotiations. But the most important change we are witnessing is the realistic viewpoint of the parties and expectations is balanced as we hear from the early statements of the officials.
“We will try to reach preliminary results by tomorrow morning, but anyway we do not expect to reach a final solution by tomorrow,” said Abbas Araghchi while briefing Iranian media after the end of first plenary today morning.
He also expressed hope for next round of talks to take place less than one month later.
