Iran’s talks Saturday with six world powers aimed at easing tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme were faring much better than the last failed attempt, with prospects good for another round, the European Union said.
“There is a positive atmosphere … contrasting with the last time” in January 2011, Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told reporters at the meeting in Istanbul, saying they were “totally different.”
“The principles for future talks seem to be there,” he said, adding that the venue and date for the next round of more detailed discussions — possibly in four to six weeks in Baghdad — would “probably be decided later today.”
Other delegations in Istanbul were tight-lipped on progress. They were expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings before coming back for what they hope will be a final joint session later on Saturday.
Sources close to the Iranian delegation said that the US team has requested — via Ashton — what would be rare bilateral discussions with the head of the Iranian delegation, Saeed Jalili. No response has been made so far, the source said. The last time Iran met with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — the so-called P5+1 — in January 2011 in Istanbul, it quickly became apparent that they would go nowhere.
US ready for bilateral meeting with Iran in Istanbul: EU
ISTANBUL: The US delegation at crunch talks here Saturday between Iran and six world powers on Tehran’s nuclear programme is open to a bilateral meeting with Iranian counterparts, two European sources said. “The Americans are open to the idea of meeting the Iranians,” one Western diplomat from a European country participating in the talks in Istanbul said. “All countries have expressed interest for bilaterals,” said EU spokesman Michael Mann.