Tehran: Iran and world powers will begin work drafting a long-term settlement of Iran’s disputed nuclear programme at expert-level talks in New York next month, the official state news agency Irna reported on Sunday.
During the May 5-9 meeting, the P5+1 world powers and Iran will start “writing draft of comprehensive agreements which will be a complex and difficult work,” said senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi, according to Irna.
Hamid Baeedinejad, Director-General for the Political and International Affairs Department of Foreign Ministry, will head Iran’s team at talks on the sidelines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review preliminary committee meeting, Irna said.
The US, France, Germany, Britain, China, Russia have agreed a July 20 deadline with Iran to clinch a long-term deal that would allow a gradual lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran over its atomic programme.
Tehran denies using its declared civilian atomic energy programme as a front for covertly developing the means to make nuclear weapons, saying it seeks only electricity from its enrichment of uranium.
Under a breakthrough preliminary agreement that took effect on January 20, Iran halted some aspects of its nuclear programme in exchange for a limited easing of international sanctions that have laid low the major oil producer’s economy.
In its monthly update, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a pivotal role in verifying that Iran is living up to its part of the accord, said that Iran so far was undertaking the agreed steps to curb its nuclear programme.
