1 of 4. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L), Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (center L), European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton (center L) and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) are seated during a meeting of the foreign ministers representing the permanent five member countries of the United Nations Security Council, including Germany, at UN Headquarters in New York September 26, 2013. Iran's new government began its first talks on its nuclear program with the United States and five other world powers on Thursday, with the Iranian foreign minister taking a seat next to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a rare high-level contact between the two long-estranged nations.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)
By Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick
UNITED NATIONS | Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:28pm EDT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran and the United States held their highest-level substantive talks in a generation on Thursday, saying the tone was positive but sounding cautious about resolving the long-running standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met after Zarif held wider talks with the United States and other major powers to address Western suspicions that Iran may be trying to develop atomic weapons.
Diplomats from the major countries described the atmosphere of the wider talks in positive terms, but they, as well as the U.S. and Iranian foreign ministers, stressed the difficulty of resolving a dispute that has eluded solution for a decade.
"We had a very constructive meeting," Kerry told reporters after the talks at the United Nations, where he and Zarif had sat next to one another in a gesture that suggested a desire by both sides to explore how to ease their more than three-decade estrangement.
But Kerry added, "Needless to say, one meeting and a change in tone, which was welcome, doesn't answer those questions yet and there is a lot of work to be done."
The United States wants Iran to address questions about its nuclear program, which Washington and its allies suspect is a cover for developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies that, saying its program is for solely peaceful, civilian uses.
Zarif, a U.S.-educated diplomat, also sounded a cautionary note and insisted on quick relief from the painful U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions imposed for Iran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program.
"I am satisfied with this first step. Now we have to see whether we can match our positive words with serious deeds so we can move forward," he told reporters.
"Of course as we move forward, there has to be removal of sanctions and in the end game there has to be a total lifting of all sanctions and both bilateral sanctions, unilateral sanctions as well as multilateral sanctions and U.N. sanctions and we hope to be able to move in that direction within a short span of time."
Kerry said Zarif had put some "possibilities" on the table, but stressed there was more work to be done.
It was a very uncommon encounter between top officials of the United States and Iran, which have been estranged since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.
A State Department official said it was the highest-level "official" meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials since before the Iranian revolution, although there had been "informal" interactions at the same level in the past 10 to 12 years."
Both Kerry and counterparts from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany described their meeting with Zarif on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly as "a change in tone" from encounters with Iran's previous, hardline government.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who chaired the meeting, told reporters it had been "a substantial meeting. Good atmosphere. Energetic."
She said the two sides had agreed on an "ambitious timetable" to address Western concerns and would meet again in Geneva on October 15 and 16 "to pursue the agenda to carry on from today's meeting and to hopefully move this process forward."
Ashton also added a note of caution, saying it was important to focus on "effective work that we do on the ground."
HANDSHAKE OR NO HANDSHAKE
Kerry was seen smiling at Zarif at the start of the meeting and Ashton hinted that he and Zarif shook hands, noting the two had sat side by side.
"Secretary Kerry ... is a man of great politeness, so it would be surprising if they didn't do that," she said.
"We all shook hands and we all smiled," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after the meeting on Iran.
The New York talks involved the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Britain, France, Russia, China, the United States - and Germany, known as the P5+1.
Beforehand, Kerry said he looked forward to the first meeting involving the newly elected Iranian government of centrist President Hassan Rouhani, but would not specify what Iran should do to show it was serious about addressing concerns about its nuclear program.
A moderate cleric, Rouhani has stepped up efforts to improve Iran's image abroad during his visit to New York this week. He has said that Iran would never develop nuclear weapons and called for a nuclear deal in three to six months.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday cautiously embraced Rouhani's gestures as the basis for a possible nuclear deal and challenged him to demonstrate his sincerity.
But the failure to orchestrate a handshake between the two leaders, apparently because of Rouhani's concerns about a backlash from hardliners at home and perhaps Obama's concerns about the possibility of a failed overture, underscored how hard it will be to make diplomatic progress.
Even without making any real concessions so far, Rouhani has offered a softer, more reasonable tone than his stridently anti-U.S. predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The sanctions imposed on Iran have begun to bite severely.
Iranian oil exports have fallen by about 60 percent in the past two years as the EU stopped purchases and most Asian buyers drastically cut imports because of the sanctions. Iran is now earning only around $100 million from oil sales a day as opposed to $250 million two years ago.
The six powers said in February they wanted Iran to stop enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, ship out some stockpiles and shutter a facility where such enrichment work is done. In return, they offered relief on international sanctions on Iran's petrochemicals and trade in gold and other precious metals.
U.S. officials say that offer remains on the table.
But signaling some of the obstacles that could hamper any new diplomacy, Iran on Thursday sharply criticized the U.N. nuclear watchdog over "baseless allegations" about its atomic activity.
It was an apparent reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency's concerns, spelled out in a series of quarterly reports, about what it calls the possible military dimensions to Iranian nuclear activities.
(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati, Lesley Wroughton, David Brunnstrom and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Marcus George in Dubai; Dmitry Zhdannikov in London and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham, Jim Loney and Peter Cooney)
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