Iran, P5+1 resume work on drafting text of final nuclear deal

Senior representatives of Iran and the P5+1 group of countries have held talks on drafting the text of a possible final agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Iranian deputy foreign ministers, Abbas Araghchi and Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, held a three-hour meeting with European Union deputy foreign policy chief Helga Schmid in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on Monday.

The members of Iran’s negotiating team also held discussions with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman on the draft of the final deal.

Experts from Iran, led by director general for political and international security affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Hamid Baeidinejad, and the six world powers held simultaneous talks.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany are holding talks to finalize the text of a possible deal over Iran’s nuclear program by the end of June.

The two sides reached a mutual understanding on the key parameters of the potential deal in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2.

Foreign ministers returning to Vienna

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who returned to Tehran from Vienna early Monday, is scheduled to rejoin the nuclear talks later on Tuesday.

Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi and Hossein Fereydoun, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s special aide, are also set to join the negotiating team.

French and German foreign ministers Laurent Fabius and Frank-Walter Steinmeier as well as British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond are set to return to the Austrian capital for sensitive nuclear talks as a self-imposed June-end deadline arrives Tuesday.

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