0
Monday 21 May 2012 - 07:31

Amano arrives in Tehran, positive on talks with Iran

Story Code : 163885
Amano arrives in Tehran, positive on talks with Iran
"There has been good progress during the recent rounds of discussions between Iran and IAEA. So I thought that now is the right time...to visit Iran and have direct talks with high officials of Iran…to reach agreement…I stay positive," Yukiya Amano said at airport in Vienna on Sunday. Iranian and IAEA delegations met in the Austrian capital last week.

He arrived in Tehran in the early hours of Monday, accompanied by Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA deputy director general for safeguards, and Rafael Mariano Grossi, the agency’s assistant director general for policy, and was welcomed by Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

During the visit, Amano will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and the Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Fereydoun Abbasi.

He is also scheduled to hold a meeting with the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili two days before Jalili sits across the table with the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, the senior EU official heading the P5+1 group, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, in Baghdad.

The latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group was held in Istanbul on April 14. Both sides hailed the talks as constructive.
Comment