European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (left) and Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili meet before the talks in Almaty, Tuesday — Reuters
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — World powers and Iran Tuesday exchanged offers in crunch talks in Kazakhstan aimed at breaking a decade of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear drive despite low expectations of any deal.
The two-day meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty comes as sanctions bite against the Islamic republic and Israel still refuses to rule out air strikes to knock out Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive.
The first round of closed-door talks involving the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany lasted several hours. They were expected to later adjourn and resume Wednesday, Kazakh officials following the talks said.
“We have come here with a revised offer and we have come to engage with Iran in a meaningful way,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who negotiates with Iran on behalf of the world powers, said in a statement.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Berlin, said there is a “diplomatic path” in the nuclear crisis and expressed hope that “Iran itself will make its choice to move down the path of a diplomatic solution.”
The world powers are offering Iran permission to resume its gold and precious metals trade as well as some international banking activity which are currently under sanctions, Western officials told AFP.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — World powers and Iran Tuesday exchanged offers in crunch talks in Kazakhstan aimed at breaking a decade of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear drive despite low expectations of any deal.
The two-day meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty comes as sanctions bite against the Islamic republic and Israel still refuses to rule out air strikes to knock out Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive.
The first round of closed-door talks involving the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany lasted several hours. They were expected to later adjourn and resume Wednesday, Kazakh officials following the talks said.
“We have come here with a revised offer and we have come to engage with Iran in a meaningful way,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who negotiates with Iran on behalf of the world powers, said in a statement.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Berlin, said there is a “diplomatic path” in the nuclear crisis and expressed hope that “Iran itself will make its choice to move down the path of a diplomatic solution.”
The world powers are offering Iran permission to resume its gold and precious metals trade as well as some international banking activity which are currently under sanctions, Western officials told AFP.
But in exchange, Iran will have to limit sensitive uranium enrichment operations that the world powers fear could be used to make a nuclear bomb, the sources added.
Iran would have to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and shut down its controversial Fordo plant where such activity occurs, a Western official said.
An Iranian source said Tehran had come up with a counter-offer, whose final nature would be determined by terms posed by the big powers.
“Which version we present depends on what the 5+1 (world powers) put forward. Our offer will be of the same weight as their offer,” the Iranian delegation source said.
The source stressed “there was no question” of Tehran closing the Fordo plant where uranium is enriched to up to 20 percent — a level seen as being within technical reach of weapons-grade matter. But Iran could envisage halting the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, if all international sanctions against it were dropped, including UN Security Council measures, the source said.
Hopes are low of a breakthrough at the talks — the first such since a meeting in Moscow in June 2012 — and Iranian officials have doused expectations by insisting they will offer no special concessions.
“It’s clear that no one expects everyone to walk out of here in Almaty with a done deal. This is a negotiating process,” said Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann. — AFP
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