The European Union said it would hold further talks with Iran on the country’s nuclear programme, following a one-day technical-level meeting between the international community and Tehran in Istanbul.
No date has been set yet for the talks, which will be between Iran’s deputy nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri, and his EU counterpart, Helga Schmid, the EU said Wednesday.
At Tuesday’s Istanbul talks, the sides shared details of their proposals for resolving the nuclear standoff, “and the experts explored positions on a number of technical subjects,” EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
The Istanbul meeting, which ran into Wednesday’s early hours, had been called after high-level talks in Moscow last month between Iran and the P5+1—the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany—failed to produce a breakthrough.
At the time, Western officials said insufficient progress had been made for setting up a fourth round of top-level negotiations between Ashton and Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili. This has not changed after the most recent talks in Istanbul
At the talks, western officials demanded Iran respond to a P5+1 requirement that Tehran stop uranium enrichment at 20%, a level considered dangerously close to weapons-grade material. The group has also insisted that Iran agree to ship its current stock of enriched uranium out of the country and shut down its underground Fordow nuclear plant.




