Iran’s Zarif, US Kerry Hold NuclearTalks in Munich

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry have held fresh talks in the German city of Munich as a March deadline for a nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 group approaches.

The two foreign ministers started their talks on Friday on the sidelines of Munich Security Conference.

Back in January, Zarif and Kerry held intense negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva to help speed up the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group – the US, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany – over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear work.

The Iranian minister is scheduled to attend a meeting attended by Kerry as well as his French and German counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Sunday to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. European Union foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, is likely to participate in the meeting.

The Iranian minister is also to hold a one-on-one meeting with his German counterpart.

Since an interim deal was agreed in Geneva in November 2013, the negotiating sides have missed two self-imposed deadlines to ink a final agreement.

Iran and the P5+1 countries now seek to reach a high-level political agreement by March 1 and to confirm the full technical details of the accord by July 1.

The scale of Iran’s uranium enrichment and the timetable for the lifting of anti-Iran sanctions are seen as major sticking points in the talks.

China stresses need for fair Iran nuclear agreement

Meanwhile,  China is striving for a fair Iran nuclear accord amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to finally end the dispute, a top Chinese official said Friday at a high-profile international security meetingin Munich.

Addressing the 51st Munich Security Conference, State Councilor Yang Jiechi said his country is pursuing a ˈjuste and balancedˈ deal on Iranˈs nuclear program.

What China wants is a ˈwin-winˈ comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, the former Chinese foreign minister added.

The three-day Munich Security Conference will reportedly be a venue for a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad JavadZarif and his six counterparts from the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Sanctions increase inequality – Iran UN envoy

On the other hand, Iran’s envoy to the UN says economic sanctions have triggered an increase in the rate of inequality in the countries targeted with the bans.

Addressing a meeting on social development in the UN on Friday, GholamHosseinDehqani slammed the imposition of “illegitimate and unlawful” financial restrictions on countries and said the restrictions are a very important factor in the surge of inequality, according to IRIB News.

“Despite the progress that has been made, the level of inequality in the world has increased; and global financial policies are one of the main factors in [the emergence of] the inequality,” he said.

He also highlighted the destructive impacts of the sanctions, saying that embargoes prevent governments from reaching the Millennium Development Goals and the objectives of social development devised in the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995.

The United States and the European Union have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Iran in a bid to stop the country from pursuing its peaceful nuclear program. Iran has repeatedly challenged the legality of the sanctions as the country has performed its obligations under the international treaties on nuclear activities.

The policy of imposing sanctions has also been applied to other countries, including Russia, which has been hit by several rounds of sanction as Western government accuse it of having a hand in the ongoing crisis in east Ukraine.

PRESS  T.V, IRNA

R.S