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Direct nuclear talks in Geneva between USA and Iran

Iran, US hold direct talks in Geneva for nuclear deal 7 News, 
June 9, 2014,Geneva (AFP) – Representatives from Iran and the United States meet in Geneva Monday for their first full-scale official talks in decades aimed at bridging the gaps in negotiations for a deal on Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

Neither the location nor the programme of the two-day meeting have been announced.
The main issue however is expected to be finding a route toward an eventual lifting of sanctions.

Abbas Araqchi, a vice foreign minister who will lead the Iranian delegation, said Sunday that the tete-a-tete with US officials was essential as the negotiations are delicately poised.

The P5+1 group of permanent members of the Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany have long sought to reach a settlement over Iran’s nuclear programme.

But with the last round of talks in Vienna in May yielding next to no progress, there has been concern that the P5+1 process was stalling.

The announcement on Saturday of the US-Iran meetings in Geneva came as a surprise, but appeared to confirm the need for secondary steps to close big gaps between Tehran and Washington’s positions……….An interim deal struck last November led the US and its partners to release $7 billion from frozen funds in return for a slowdown in Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment.

But a long-term accord, ahead of a July 20 deadline, remains a long way off, experts say.

Cyrus Nasseri, a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team when it was led by Rouhani between 2003 and 2005, told AFP the US role as “the main interlocutor” explained the need for direct talks, and said Washington had to drop its “stubbornly recalcitrant” outlook.

“It’s all a matter of whether the US will be prepared to take the next step to accept a reasonable solution which will be win-win for both,” with Iran allowed to maintain a uranium enrichment programme, he said.

“The US has to bite the bullet after 10 years of wrongful accusations. It has to accept Iran will at the end of day, no matter how the settlement is made, have peaceful nuclear fuel production.” https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/24195668/iran-us-hold-direct-talks-in-geneva-for-nuclear-deal/

June 9, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general