P5+1 nations meeting ends talk in Geneva

The meeting aimed to smoothen out major bumps in reaching a nuclear deal with Iran

The meeting of the foreign ministers of the P5+1 nations aimed to smoothen out major bumps in reaching a nuclear deal with Iran has ended with a positive note.

The meeting of P5+1 -China, Russia, the UK, the US, France and Germany-group nations was held yesterday at the EU mission here and was attended by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Seyed Abbas Araghchi.

After the meeting, Araghchi said, "It was a fruitful meeting but we cannot claim any progress yet. It's too early to say."

The US side was attended by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman.

Meanwwhile, bilateral meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and the Iranian Foreign minister Javad Zarif and Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, continued at a separate location.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's brother and close aide Hossein Fereydoon along with US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz made their maiden appearance in the talks signalling that the deal is entering a sensitive stage.

The two officials and their negotiators spent more than five hours yesterday negotiating technical details of the nuclear talks.

The US and Iranian diplomats along with negotiators from the P5+1 group have been meeting in Geneva since the last three days to smoothen out major bumps in reaching a nuclear deal.

The tricky negotiations have mainly been over Iranian uranium enrichment and the pace of removing sanctions, which the US wants to stagger over time.

The six powerful nations are trying to broker a deal with Iran to end a more than a decade-long standoff over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in return for an easing of sanctions.

Iran, however, has maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes..

Kerry had warned yesterday that 'significant gaps' remain ahead of the March 31 which the Obama adminsitration has set to agree on a political framework for the deal.

Two deadlines for a permanent agreement have been missed since a November 2013 interim deal in which Iran was given limited sanctions relief in exchange for diluting its stock of fissile material from 20% enriched uranium to 5%.