Iran,US open nuclear talks in Munich

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a fresh round of talks in Munich as a March deadline for a nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 group approaches, a media report said Saturday.

The two foreign ministers held their talks Friday on the sidelines of Munich Security Conference, Press TV reported.

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 of world powers -- the US, France, Britain, China, Russia plus Germany -- over Tehran's peaceful nuclear work.

The Iranian minister is scheduled to attend a meeting which will be attended by Kerry as well as his French and German counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Sunday to discuss Iran's nuclear program.

European Union foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, is likely to participate in the meeting.

The Iranian minister will also 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.