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Iran and six major powers have agreed to meet in Geneva next month
for further talks on resolving the standoff with Tehran on its nuclear
programme.US and Iranian officials emerged upbeat on Thursday from a meeting on Iran's nuclear programme, but both sides sounded a cautionary note, with the US saying there was more work to do and Iran insisting on quick sanctions relief.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, said after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry following the meeting that the key world powers had agreed to fast-track negotiations over the programme to within a year.
- However, Kerry said later that the US would not lift sanctions on Iran until it showed it was not pursuing a nuclear-weapons capability.
President Hassan Rouhani said Iran was committed to negotiate on its nuclear programme in "good faith" after the highest-level talks yet held with world powers.
"We are fully prepared to seriously engage in the process toward a negotiated and mutually agreeable settlement and do so in good faith and with a business-like mind," Rouhani told a forum in New York.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said that the UN meeting with Iran officials on Thursday had been a very positive first step in resolving the dispute.
"We had a discussion about how we would go forward with an ambitious timeframe to see whether we can make progress quickly," Ashton said after the meeting.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York and included Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and counterparts from the US, France, Russia, China and Germany.
Zarif said after taking part in bilateral talks with Kerry, in one of the highest level contacts between the two foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, that they had stressed "the need to continue these discussions to give it the political impetus that it requires and to hopefully to reach a conclusion within a reasonable time."
"We agreed to jump-start the process so that we could move forward with a view to agreeing first on the perimeters of the end game," the foreign minister said. "And move towards finalising it hopefully within a year's time.
"I thought I was too ambitious, bordering naivete. But I saw that some of my colleagues were even more ambitious and wanted to do it faster.''
Kerry said he was pleased with the new positive tone from Iran.
Ambitious plan
"Needless to say, one meeting and a change in tone, which was welcome, doesn't answer those questions yet and there is a lot of work to be done," Kerry said after the talks.
He later said in an interview with the CBS show 60 Minutes later on Thursday that one concrete step Iran could take to show it was serious about not seeking nuclear arms would be to open up its Fordow uranium enrichment facility to UN inspectors.
- "The United States is not going to lift the sanctions until it is clear that a very verifiable, accountable, transparent process is in place, whereby we know exactly what Iran is going be doing with its programme," Kerry said.
- Ashton said the Geneva meeting on October 15 to 16 would "carry on from today's meeting and hopefully move this process forward."
27/9/13
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Atomstreit mit Iran Sicherheitsrat erzielt erste Annäherung....
ReplyDeleteEndlich tragen die Verhandlungen des UN-Sicherheitsrates mit dem Iran erste Früchte: US-Außenminister Kerry sprach mit seinem iranischen Kollegen Sarif, eine Einigung rückt in greifbare Nähe.
Aufbruchstimmung im Atomstreit mit dem Iran: Die Außenminister der fünf UN-Vetomächte und Deutschlands verständigten sich in New York mit dem iranischen Chefdiplomaten Mohammed Dschawad Sarif darauf, Mitte Oktober wieder über das umstrittene Nuklearprogramm Teherans zu verhandeln. Am Rande der Sitzung der sogenannten 5+1-Gruppe kam es zu einem historischen Zweiergespräch zwischen Sarif und US-Außenminister John Kerry.....http://www.n24.de/n24/Nachrichten/Politik/d/3584510/sicherheitsrat-erzielt-erste-annaeherung.html
27/9/13
Kerry and Zarif shake hands and agree to work on a solution....
ReplyDeleteCatherine Ashton said next round of talks with Iran will be in Geneva on October 15-16
UNITED NATIONS (AA) - Announcing that the meeting with foreign minister of Iran Javad Zarif was open in “good atmosphere” and “energetic”, High Representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security Catherine Ashton said they had substantial discussion of “how to move forward” with the “ambitious time frame.”
The meeting P5+1 with all permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) plus Germany was organized on the margins of the 68th UN General Assembly (NGA) with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Zarif both attending the talks over the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
Talks scheduled in Geneva
World’s top diplomats including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, Laurent Fabius of France and Guido Westerwelle of Germany gathered in the consultation room of UN Security Council to talk about the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
Coming out of the meeting that lasted for more than an hour Ashton said Iranians have agreed that the next round of their “3 + 3” talks would be held in Geneva on October 15 and 16......http://www.aa.com.tr/en/headline/233279--kerry-and-zarif-shake-hands-and-agree-to-work-on-a-solution
27/9/13
Israel warns US over Iran’s ‘charm offensive’ ...
ReplyDeleteIsrael has raised the alarm over what it says is Iranian President Hassan Rohani's deceitful efforts to convince the United States and the world that it wants to reach a deal over its controversial nuclear programme.
Israel has warned the United States and the international community over what it believes is the hypocrisy of newly-elected Iranian president Hassan Rohani, who this week has grabbed much of the world’s attention at the annual UN General Assembly with diplomatic overtures.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly snubbed Rohani’s address Tuesday, in which the Iranian leader said his country poised no threat to world peace, as “cynical”.
The Israeli embassy in Washington called into question Rohani’s sincerity via its Twitter account. It even published a mock profile of Rohani on the LinkedIn website in which he brags about duping the West.
Responding to both praise and criticism over Rohani’s fake profile, the embassy later wrote on its website:
“Since his election, Iranian President Hassan Rohani has embarked on a public diplomacy campaign to relieve sanctions while continuing to advance Iran's nuclear programme. In recent years, when Iran embarked on the diplomatic track, its nuclear programme did not stop. In fact, it accelerated…”
Landmark US-Iran meeting
On Thursday evening, the United States and Iran were part of a historic high-level meeting at the UN. US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif participated in a foreign minister’s gathering to discuss Tehran's nuclear programme - which Western powers and Israel suspect is aimed at producing weapons.
The previous day, Rohani told the US media he wanted a deal on the nuclear issue with the United States within months.
Earlier in the week, the Iranian president also won plaudits for an interview on CNN in which he condemned the Holocaust - a marked change from his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric.
Rohani charges back
Rohani's message is a “real diplomatic challenge for Israel,” Professor Uzi Rabi, an Iran specialist at Tel Aviv University, told the AFP news agency. “The last time Netanyahu was at the United Nations, it was much easier for Israel to argue on Iran.”
Iran has also seized the opportunity of its increased profile at the UN General Assembly to admonish arch-foe Israel, with Rohani challenging Israel on Thursday to join an international treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons.
The Jewish state, long-suspected of having a secret nuclear arsenal, is the only Mideast nation that has failed to sign the treaty, Rohani noted.
In reaction to Rohani's challenge, Yuval Steinitz, the head of the Israeli delegation at the UN General Assembly, said Rouhani was trying to divert attention from its nuclear ambitions by attempting "to smile his way to the bomb."
The war of words between Israel and Iran will likely escalate on October 1, when Netanyahu finally takes the stage at the UN General Assembly.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130927-israel-warning-general-assembly-rohani-charm-offensive-iran-nuclear-programme?ns_campaign=editorial&ns_source=RSS_public&ns_mchannel=RSS&ns_fee=0&ns_linkname=20130927_israel_warning_general_assembly_rohani_charm
27/9/13
Nucléaire : discussions «très constructives» entre l'Iran et l'AIEA...
ReplyDeleteLa rencontre entre l'Agence internationale de l'énergie atomique et un ambassadeur de Téhéran marque un pas de plus vers l'apaisement sur la question du programme nucléaire iranien.
L’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) a jugé «très constructives» les discussions menées vendredi avec l’Iran sur son programme nucléaire, un nouveau signal positif après l’offensive diplomatique du nouveau président, Hassan Rohani, à la tribune des Nations Unies à New-York.
«Nous sommes convenus de nous rencontrer à nouveau le 28 octobre. Nous amorcerons alors les discussions substantielles sur la façon de résoudre toutes les questions en suspens», a déclaré le chef des inspecteurs de l’agence, Herman Nackaerts.
Le nouvel ambassadeur iranien auprès de l’AIEA, Reza Najafi, lui a fait écho, soulignant que les deux camps avaient mené des «discussions constructives sur différents sujets» à l’issue de la réunion qui s’est tenue à la représentation iranienne à Vienne.....http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2013/09/27/nucleaire-discussions-tres-constructives-entre-l-iran-et-l-aiea_935196?xtor=rss-450
27/9/13
Iran has stopped enriching uranium to 20%, media reports say...
ReplyDeleteTEHRAN, October 24 (Itar-Tass) - Iran has stopped enriching uranium to 20%, the Islamic Republic's News Agency (IRNA) said on Thursday.
“Tehran has stopped enriching uranium to a level of purity higher than 5 percent ”, IRNA quoted the spokesman for the national security and foreign policy parliamentary Commission (NSFP), Hossein Naghavi Hosseini. as saying. “Iran possesses a sufficient amount of 20%-enriched uranium for conversion into fuel for its medical research reactor in Tehran”.
The spokesman said, however, that in the future Tehran will independently make a decision whether it wants higher than 5%-enriched uranium.
“There is no point in discussing this issue right now because the process of enrichment has been stopped anyway”, he added.
The Western powers have repeatedly stated that in order to convince the world it has no intention to develop nuclear weapons Iran should stop enriching uranium to 20%, as well as to give more publicity to its nuclear programme and to reduce uranium stockpiles.
http://www.itar-tass.com/c32/924664.html
24/10/13