Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Javad Zarif said a ministerial meeting with the P5+1 countries would likely be necessary following talks in Geneva this week aimed at reaching an accord over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“I hope that we will be able to reach a roadmap by Wednesday, but ... it will probably be necessary to have a new ministerial meeting,” Zarif wrote on his Facebook page late on Sunday.
The talks in Geneva today and tomorrow will be between Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araqchi and his counterparts from the P5+1 group — the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany.
Zarif will take part in the opening sessions in Geneva, but Araqchi will lead the Iranian delegation during the talks.
However, Zarif wrote on his Facebook page that “if necessary, I will also speak.”
“We want to change the approach of the past six years, which have given no results,” Zarif wrote.
Araqchi, speaking to the state broadcaster on Sunday, said the “plan that will be presented by Zarif to the P5+1 countries during the opening session ... has been prepared so that there can be no pretext to refuse it.”
He did not give any further details on the plan, but said uranium enrichment was a “red line” for the Islamic republic.
“We will negotiate about the volume, levels and the methods of enrichment, but shipping out the [enriched] material is a red line for Iran,” Araqchi said.
Iran currently has 6,774kg of low-enriched uranium, and nearly 186kg of material enriched to 20 percent, as well as 187kg of the 20 percent material converted to uranium oxide for use in fuel plates.
It also possesses about 187kg of the 20 percent material converted to uranium oxide for use in fuel plates.
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