UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and its European allies said Thursday they were pleased by a new tone and a significant shift in attitude from Iran in talks aimed at resolving the impasse over the country’s disputed nuclear activities. Iran said it was eager to dispel suspicions it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon and to get punishing international sanctions lifted as fast as possible.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and its European allies said Thursday they were pleased by a new tone and a significant shift in attitude from Iran in talks aimed at resolving the impasse over the country’s disputed nuclear activities. Iran said it was eager to dispel suspicions it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon and to get punishing international sanctions lifted as fast as possible.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who also had an unexpected one-on-one meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said six world powers and Iran had agreed to fast-track nuclear negotiations with the hope of reaching a deal within a year.
Iran, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany also agreed to hold a new round of nuclear negotiations Oct. 15 and 16 in Geneva.
“We agreed to jump-start the process so that we could move forward with a view to agreeing first on the parameters of the end game … and move toward finalizing it hopefully within a year’s time,” Zarif said. “I thought I was too ambitious, bordering on naiveté. But I saw that some of my colleagues were even more ambitious and wanted to do it faster.”
Kerry said he was struck by a “very different tone” from Tehran after their sessions, which marked the highest-level direct contact between the U.S. and Iran in six years. But, like his European colleagues, he stressed a single meeting was not enough to assuage international concerns Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program.