BICOM

US Secretary of State John Kerry and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif today in Vienna with a November deadline looming for Iran and the P5+1 powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) to reach agreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Iran and the P5+1 concluded a six-month agreement in Geneva in November, which saw Tehran reduce some of its enrichment capacity in return for a loosening of selected sanctions. However, the two sides were unable to meet a 20 July deadline to broker a longer-term settlement and agreed to extend the talks until 24 November. There appeared to be little significant progress during the last round of negotiations on 24 September to indicate that the deadline will be met.

Zarif and Ashton, who heads the P5+1 delegation met yesterday, with Kerry set to join talks today. Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann confirmed yesterday that “there will be a bilateral meeting between Catherine Ashton and Zarif, then they will be joined by Secretary of State Kerry.” He commented that, “the hope is that they just make some progress.” In a further sign of increased diplomatic activity ahead of next month’s deadline, it was also confirmed that the political directors of the P5+1 countries will meet with Ashton and Zarif tomorrow.

Yesterday, during a visit to Paris, Kerry commented on the prospects of reaching an agreement with Iran, saying, “I don’t believe it’s out of reach,” but that, “we have some tough issues to resolve. I am not going to prognosticate. We need to continue to have some serious discussions and see where we are.”

Several significant sticking points between the two sides remain, most notably the size and scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity. The P5+1 powers reportedly want Tehran to reduce its number of centrifuges to 5,000 while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has previously said that his country needs 190,000 centrifuges.