Thursday, January 24, 2013

Egypt Yet to Decide on Hosting Iran Talks


Egypt has yet to decide whether it will host talks between Iran and world powers on Iranian nuclear program, the official MENA news agency reported today.

“Cairo has always welcomed in principle anything that can help to sustain stability in the Middle East, but nothing definite has been decided yet,” an unidentified official told MENA. “Contacts are under way on this issue.” (MENA/AFP, 24 January)

On Wednesday, Iranian foreign minister was quoted by the country’s semi-official news agency ISNA that Iran has proposed Cairo as the venue for the next talks with the major world powers.

But a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief yesterday criticized Iran for stalling on fixing a date and venue for the new round of talks, saying Iran keep changing their preferred venue and delaying their responses to EU’s suggestions.

Iran and P5+1 last met in Moscow in June 2012, but the meeting was a failure and did not produce any concrete agreements between the two sides.

Photo credit: Egyptian/EU flags (EU)

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