Iran confirms trilateral n-meet Nov 9-10

The Iranian foreign minister will meet the US secretary of state and European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Nov 9-10 to discuss core issues on Tehran's nuclear programme, an Iranian negotiator said Saturday confirming an earlier report by the US state department.

Mohammad-Javad Zarif will meet US's John Kerry and EU's Catherine Ashton in Oman's capital Muscat to discuss Iran's uranium enrichment and the anti-Iran sanctions, Xinhua quoted the unnamed Iranian official as saying.

The meeting comes two weeks before the Nov 24 deadline set for a comprehensive deal on the controversial nuclear programme of the Islamic republic.

Iran and the P5+1 -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the US plus Germany -- agreed in July to extend the nuclear talks for four more months till Nov 24, as they could not narrow down significant gaps on core issues during the past six months.

The two sides met again about two weeks ago in Vienna, Austria, without any major breakthrough.

Tehran was not seeking to extend the talks and was trying to reach a comprehensive deal with the six powers before the Nov 24 deadline, Iran's nuclear negotiator Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi said Tuesday.