{{Foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (P5 + 1) are set to sit down with their Iranian counterpart on Thursday for what could be the start of earnest talks about Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme, in the wake of Iran’s President Hassan Rohani stating that he wanted to reach a deal within three to six months.}}
“The only way forward is for a timeline to be inserted into the negotiations that is short. The shorter it is, the more beneficial it is to everyone,” Rohani said in an interview with the Washington Post newspaper published on Wednesday.
The comments come a day after he told the UN General Assembly that Iran presented no threat to world peace and was ready to engage with the United States.
Rohani told the newspaper on the sidelines of the UN gathering in New York that, “If it’s three months that would be Iran’s choice, if it’s six months that’s still good. It’s a question of months not years.”
There was a real optimism at the UN over the possibility of a breakthrough in the stalled nuclear negotiations, according to FRANCE 24’s correspondent at the UN in New York Emmanuel Saint-Martin.
“It is a cautious optimism,” Saint-Martin noted. “One Western diplomat told me today that while we have seen a lot of gestures and a lot of good signals have been sent, so far there is nothing concrete. So people are very eager for this meeting.”
Rohani, described as a moderate cleric, won the presidential election in June on a platform of more openness with the West and progress on the nuclear issue.
US President Barack Obama and French President François Hollande welcomed Rohani’s encouraging address in New York this week, but demanded more than rhetoric.
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