TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran announced on Wednesday that the country's negotiators and their counterparts in the nuclear talks between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) have paved over 90% of the path towards a comprehensive deal."Given the fact that negotiations have been underway since a year ago, we can say that we have paved over 90% of the path and we are now taking the last steps which are of course important, sensitive and hard," Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said in Tehran today.
Asked about the Russian officials' remarks that 95% of work has been done for reaching a final agreement between the two sides, she said, "95% or 98% progress are the assessments that politicians state in their remarks and views; yet one can say that an important section of the path has been paved and the remaining part is difficult."
Afkham underlined that all sides are now focused on using the remaining 40 days (before the November 24 deadline) to reach a deal, and added, "Extension of the negotiations is on no one's agenda."
Iran and the six major world powers ended their 8th round of nuclear negotiations in Vienna last Thursday.
The 7th round of the talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 was held in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting last month.
The two sides held six rounds of negotiations in Vienna to reach a comprehensive deal after they inked an interim agreement in Geneva on November 24.
The Geneva agreement took effect on January 20 and expired six months later on July 20. In July, Tehran and the six countries agreed to extend negotiations until November 24 after they failed to reach an agreement on a number of key issues.
On Sunday, Iran's deputy lead negotiator Seyed Abbas Araqchi voiced satisfaction in the progressive trend of the talks with the six major world powers, and said a final deal before the November 24 deadline was not out of reach.
Araqchi, who is also the country's deputy foreign minister, expressed satisfaction in the considerable progress made in the process of the talks, and said, We hope that we can achieve an agreement by the specified deadline, namely November 24.
Neither of the negotiating parties is interested in extending (the deadline of) the talks. All sides are determined to achieve an agreement prior to the deadline. Therefore, extension is not on the agenda of any of the parties, Araqchi underlined.
By Fars News Agency
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