Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the negotiations in Istanbul between Iran and the six major powers are promising.
Ria Novosti reports that at a joint press conference with Guido Westerwelle, his German counterpart, Lavrov said the negotiations are on track.
He said their representatives are now talking about particular issues on an expert level, and this is a sign of a possible agreement.
Following negotiations between high-ranking delegations from each side in Moscow in June, the talks continued on July 3 on an expert technical level in Istanbul.
The previous meetings had yielded no results, and diplomats had been highly pessimistic about any breakthroughs.
After 15 hours of negotiations in Istanbul, the two sides agreed to use the “Moscow Plan” to move ahead with the negotiations.
According to this plan, the deputies of the two sides would meet next and, at a later stage, the high-ranking delegations would meet once more.
Guido Westerwelle, the German Foreign Minister, told reporters that Germany supports Iran’s right to peaceful exploitation of nuclear power but he stressed that letting Iran have access to nuclear weapons was “unacceptable.”
The West suspects that Iran’s nuclear program might have a nuclear component, but Iran denies the allegations.
