The European Union’s foreign policy chief has announced that representatives of the world powers will meet next week in New York to discuss ways of pushing forward with the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief and senior representative of the G5+1 in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, met with Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, in Istanbul today, a meeting they described as “useful and constructive.”
Ashton’s spokeswoman reported that the meeting was “an important opportunity to stress once again to Iran the urgent need to make progress.”
In the past weeks, international pressure on Iran to stop uranium enrichment has intensified. Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful and it has a right to uranium enrichment to produce fuel for its reactors.
Israel has called for the announcement of a “red line” for Iran, threatening to initiate a military attack against its nuclear installations.
In the meantime, the EU is examining the possibility of further expanding the sanctions on Iran, to go beyond the current embargos it has imposed on Iranian crude and its financial institutions.
According to her spokesperson, Ashton “is planning to meet the Foreign Ministers of the EU 3 + 3 in the margins of the UNGA [United Nations General Assembly] ministerial week in New York in order to assess the situation and to discuss the way forward.”
