World powers, Iran agree to fast-track nuclear negotiations

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. and its European allies have hailed a new tone and a significant shift in attitude from Iran in talks aimed at resolving the impasse over the country's disputed nuclear activities, Belfast Telegraph said.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who also had an unexpected one-to-one meeting with U.S. secretary of state John Kerry at the United Nations, said six world powers and Iran had agreed to fast-track nuclear negotiations, with the hope of reaching a deal within a year. Iran said it was eager to dispel suspicions that it was trying to develop a nuclear weapon and to get punishing international sanctions lifted as fast as possible.

Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany also agreed to hold a new round of substantive nuclear negotiations on October 15 and 16 in Geneva, Switzerland.

"We agreed to jump-start the process so that we could move forward with a view to agreeing first on the parameters of the end game ... and move towards finalising it hopefully within a year's time," Zarif said after the talks in New York ended.

"I thought I was too ambitious, bordering on naivete. But I saw that some of my colleagues were even more ambitious and wanted to do it faster."

Kerry said he was struck by a "very different tone" from Tehran after their sessions, which marked the highest-level direct contact between the United States and Iran in six years.

But, like his European colleagues, he stressed that a single meeting was not enough to assuage international concerns that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy programme.

"Needless to say, one meeting and a change in tone, that was welcome, does not answer those questions," he told reporters late last night. "All of us were pleased that the foreign minister came today and that he did put some possibilities on the table."

He said they agreed to continue the process and try to find concrete ways to answer the questions that people had about Iran's nuclear activities.

Zarif and Kerry sat next to each other at a U-shaped table during the group talks. It was the highest-level direct contact between the United States and Iran in six years. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton suggested the two men had shaken hands and been cordial with each other.