Iran, 5+1 group offer new proposals at Baghdad talks

BAGHDAD, May 24(MNA) - Negotiators from Iran and the six major powers held two rounds of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday and agreed to continue their negotiations on Thursday. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is representing the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) in the talks, and the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Saeed Jalili, is heading the Iranian delegation. Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister for Asian and Oceanian affairs, Ali Baqeri, the SNSC deputy secretary, Hamid Reza Asgari, a Foreign Ministry advisor, and Mostafa Dolatyar, a former director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Political and International Studies, are accompanying Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. EU foreign policy spokesman Michael Mann said in Baghdad on Wednesday that the 5+1 group had been putting forward new proposals to help resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. “We are putting proposals on the table that are also of interest to Iran,” Mann told reporters, AFP reported. Mann added, “There are things we can do for Iran. “We hope the Iranians will come back with a positive reaction to our proposals to deal with the concerns of the international community… The ball is in their court now.” AP quoted him as saying, “We hope the package that we put on the table is attractive to them so they will react positively.” “It’s up to them to react,” he added. An Iranian news agency reported on the same day that the Iranian delegation had not received any written proposal and that the group had offered their proposals verbally. It also reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran had offered a five-point package of proposals verbally on nuclear and non-nuclear issues during the negotiations. A number of bilateral meetings were held during the break between the two rounds of talks.