Efforts underway to arrange Iran nuclear talks in late January: diplomats

TEHRAN,Jan.14(MNA) – Diplomats said that a new round of talks between Iran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) will possibly be held in late January. A Western diplomat told the Back Channel on Friday that efforts are now underway to arrange a meeting at the end of the month, but said that no date or venue had yet been agreed, Al-Monitor reported. “Nothing confirmed,” a European official said on Saturday. In addition, an unnamed Russian official reportedly said on Friday that nuclear negotiations would resume at the end of January in Istanbul. That followed Russia’s lead negotiator Sergei Ryabkov criticizing the long pause in talks. Diplomats from the six world powers and Iran held three rounds of talks last spring and summer. Expectation that talks would resume shortly after the U.S. presidential elections in November has not materialized. U.S. negotiators “are ready, if Iran says yes, to work through with them a step by step deal,” a Washington non-proliferation expert told the Back Channel on Tuesday. “They want to be able to make a deal. And a major concern is whether Iran is capable of making a deal…” The latest round of high-level talks between Iran and world powers was held in Moscow on June 18 and 19.