Iran and world powers resumed a second day of negotiations today in Kazakhstan over breaking the decade-long deadlock over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme, officials said.
The second and what is widely expected to be a final day of negotiations began with a bilateral meeting between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the big powers, and chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili, Western and Iranian officials said.
The two powers then began a full plenary session between Iran and the P5+1 nations of the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
Western officials refused to say how long the plenary session would last after a two-and-a-half hour meeting yesterday, although Iranian sources said they expected it to be short.
The world powers yesterday presented Iran with a sweetener package that would ease some sanctions in return for it scaling back its enrichment activities, with Iran responding by saying it had several counter-offers to make in return.