Breakthrough hailed as US and Iran sit down for nuclear deal discussion
Iran and the US held their first substantive high-level meeting since the 1979 Islamic revolution on Thursday night at multilateral talks hailed on both sides as a fresh start for nuclear negotiations, raising hopes of a solution to the long running stalemate.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, and the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, sat next to each other at the seven-nation meeting at the UN headquarters, and lingered afterwards for a bilateral discussion of more than 20 minutes, a breakthrough in a relationship that has been frozen for more than three decades.
The meeting was chaired by the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who said that the parties would meet again in Geneva on 15 October for a two-day meeting aimed at achieving the first real diplomatic progress for several years. Zarif and Kerry said it was possible that the two of them would attend the Geneva meeting.
Ashton said she and Zarif both wanted a deal concluded in an ambitious timeframe and said an agreement could be implemented within a year. "The discussions were very substantive, businesslike," Zarif said, adding he hoped a solution could be found in a timely fashion.
Kerry noted a change in tone from Iran saying Zarif was "very different in the vision that he held out with respect to the possibilities for the future. I have just met with him now in a side meeting in which we took a moment to explore a little further the possibilities of how to proceed based on what President Obama laid out in his speech to the general assembly earlier this week," Kerry said.
"And we've agreed to try to continue the process that will make concrete and find a way to answer the questions that people have about Iran's nuclear program.".. read more:
