Progress in Iran Talks, Powers Must 'Seize Moment', Britain

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Saturday that talks on Iran's nuclear program in Geneva were making progress and that world powers needed to seize the chance for a historic deal.

Published

4 months ago

Categories

World

Topics

Middle East & North Africa, Nuclear Nonproliferation, International Relations, Europe

People

Catherine Ashton, William Hague, Guido Westerwelle, Michael Mann, Laurent Fabius, Mohammad Javad Zari

Places

France, Germany, United Kingdom, Geneva, Islamic Republic of Iran

Transcript

SHOTLIST: GENEVA, 9 NOV, 2013 SOURCE: AFPTV POOL - GV meeting between British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zari, Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton - GV Iranian delegation GENEVA, 9 NOV, 2013 SOURCE: AFPTV -Arrival of French foreign minister Laurent Fabius at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva GENEVA, 9 NOV, 2013 SOURCE: AFPTV POOL -VAR of meeting -VAR of end of meeting GENEVA, 9 NOV, 2013 SOURCE: AFPTV SOUNDBITE 1: William Hague, British Foreign Secretary [English, 12 sec]: "We can be sure there will be a deal at the end of the day and it there isn't of course then we must continue to apply ourselves in the coming weeks, building on the progress that has been made already." SOUNDBITE 2: William Hague, British Foreign Secretary [English, 21 sec]: "A wide number of issues have been satisfactorily addressed -- the atmosphere [....] is completely different atmosphere of a few months ago. Clearly dealing with these ministers from Iran is a different experience for all of us from the recent past." SOUNDBITE 3: Michael Mann, spokesperson of Catherine Ashton [English, 15 sec]: "There are lots of discussions going on and the idea is to make progress. I haven't got any concrete read-out of the sessions this morning because they have been constantly ongoing, but the idea is to move things forward and we're going our very best , we're working as hard as we can to move things forward." /// -------------------------- AFP TEXT STORY: Progress in Iran talks, powers must 'seize moment': Britain GENEVA, Nov 09, 2013 (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Saturday that talks on Iran's nuclear programme in Geneva were making progress and that world powers needed to seize the chance for a historic deal. "These negotiations have made very good progress and continue to make progress," Hague told journalists as crunch talks between six world powers and Iran stretched into a third day. Hague said there were "still important issues to resolve" but that "momentum has built up" for an agreement. "There is now a real concentration on these negotiations so we have to do everything we can to seize the moment and seize the opportunity to reach a deal that has eluded the world," he said. He said it was still "certainly not possible" that a deal would be reached by the end of Saturday. "It is too early to say that we will reach a successful conclusion today," he said. "Any agreement is going to require some flexibility on all sides... (the deal) has to be one that the world has confidence in, that the world as a whole can have confidence in," Hague added.