Next nuclear talks to kick off in September
By Sara Rajabova
Iran's foreign minister has said the next round of talks with the P5+1 countries on Iran's nuclear issue will be held in early September.
Mohammad Javad Zarif said the next round of talks are scheduled for early September but there is no decision about the venue yet, ISNA news agency reported.
He noted that disagreements between the two sides are not about enrichment itself but about the level and volume of enrichment, adding that Iran does not want anything more than its rights.
The recent talks, involving the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China as well as Iran, have made tangible progress on some issues, but large discrepancies remained especially on the pivotal issue of Iran's enrichment capacity.
The six powers want Tehran to significantly scale back its nuclear enrichment program to make sure it cannot yield nuclear bombs. They say 19,000 nuclear enrichment centrifuges that Iran has installed are too many.
However, Zarif underlined that talking about the number of centrifuges is baseless, while it is not included in the Geneva nuclear deal.
The Geneva deal only emphasizes that Iran's nuclear program should be peaceful, Zarif said, adding that the purpose of Iran's nuclear program is producing fuel for Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iran and the P5+1agreed to extend their nuclear negotiations for another four months till November 24 after failing to meet the July 20 deadline to reach a deal on curbing the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for ending sanctions.
P5+1 and Iran reached an interim pact last November under which Iran won some relief from economic sanctions in return for reining in some of its nuclear activities.
Under the deal, dubbed the Geneva Joint Plan of Action, the six countries undertook to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical research instead.