Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia will not meet with Iran at the United Nations this week to discuss a return to nuclear deal talks, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters on Monday, Reuters reported.
Diplomats were tentatively planning for a ministerial meeting of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual UN gathering of world leaders.
"Some years it happens, some years it doesn't happen. It's not in the agenda," said Borrell, who acts as a coordinator for the nuclear deal - known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
"But the important thing is not this ministerial meeting, but the will of all parties to resume negotiations in Vienna," he said, adding that he would meet with his new Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian on Tuesday.
The world powers held six rounds of indirect talks between the United States and Iran in Vienna to try and work out how both can return to compliance with the nuclear pact, which was abandoned by former US President Donald Trump in 2018.
The Vienna talks were adjourned in June after Ebrahim Raeisi was elected as Iran’s president and took office in August.
“After the elections, the new presidency asked for the delay in order to take fully take stock of the negotiations and understand better everything about this very sensitive file,” Borrell Claimed. “The summer has already passed by and we expect that the talks can be resuming soon in Vienna.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh also on Tuesday said that the meeting between Iran and P4+1 in New York is not on the agenda.
Other foreign ministers had already expressed that JCPOA would be one of the topics of discussion with P4+1 and Iran in New York but the meeting between Iran and P4 + 1 is not on the agenda, Khatibzadeh reiterated.
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