Tehran, June 29 (IANS) A senior Iranian diplomat said on Monday that technical talks between the working groups of Iran and the United States were not scheduled for this week, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, made the remarks in an address to reporters, rejecting media reports that technical talks would be held in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday.
However, Gharibabadi, who heads Iran’s delegation in the technical negotiations, said consultations were continuing with Qatar on relevant issues, including pursuing the U.S. fulfilment of obligations under the recently signed peace memorandum of understanding (MoU), Xinhua news agency reported.
On June 22, the technical negotiations between Iran and the United States began in Switzerland.
In an interview with state-run IRIB TV on Sunday, Mehdi Fazaeli, a member of the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of Iran’s Supreme Leader, said the technical negotiations between Iran and the United States had been scheduled to begin on the same day, but were cancelled by the Iranian side.
He said Iran made the decision due to US strikes against the country over the preceding two nights, and Washington’s delay in meeting some of Tehran’s conditions under the MoU.
Earlier in the day, the US and Iran had agreed to pause mutual attacks “for now” and hold talks on Tuesday in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to work out their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, US media outlet Axios reported.
The two sides will stand down “for now,” and “vessels can move freely” as technical talks are set to continue, a US official was quoted as saying.
The Tuesday talks were originally set to be held in Switzerland and focused on Iran’s nuclear program. However, renewed tensions in the Strait of Hormuz prompted the talks to be moved to Doha, shifting the focus to shipping security in the strategic waterway.
–IANS
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