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US Iran Talks

September 27, 2013 by · Comments Off on US Iran Talks 

US Iran Talks, an 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 the Iranian held wider talks with the United States and other major powers to address Western suspicions 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 at the United Nations, where he and Zarif sat next to one another in a gesture that suggested a desire on both sides to explore how to ease their nations’ more than three-decade estrangement.

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 this, saying its program is for solely peaceful, civilian uses.

“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,” Kerry told reporters.

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