Iran nuclear team heads to New York

Iran’s delegation of nuclear negotiators has set off for the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in New York, where nuclear talks will also be held on the sidelines of the event.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif heads the team, which left Tehran early Sunday.

On the sidelines of the conference, deputy and expert-level nuclear talks are scheduled to be held.

Zarif will deliver a speech at the event, and he is scheduled to hold separate meetings with US Secretary of State John Kerry, the European Union foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and some foreign ministers of the P5+1 group during the trip.

The latest round of talks between representatives of Iran and the P5+1 group - the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany - ended in Vienna, Austria, on April 24. The three-day talks were held with the aim of drafting the text of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) based upon a mutual understanding reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2.

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said Saturday that the Vienna talks were focused on the issue of anti-Iran sanctions.

Seyyed Abbas Araqchi, a senior Iranian negotiator, also told Press TV on April 24 that Tehran and the P5+1 group had started drafting the text of mechanisms related to the removal of the sanctions imposed on Tehran.

Araqchi, who is also Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said the US negotiating delegation gave the Iranian nuclear team “very useful” explanations regarding the removal of anti-Iran sanctions.