Almaty talks with Iran were useful: US

Washington: The US has said that recent talks with Iran and UN security council`s five permanent members (P5) plus Germany on confidence-building measures in Almaty were `useful`.

"The just concluded P5 plus 1 (representing five permanent members of the UN Security Council US, Britain, Russia, China and France plus Germany) talks with Iran were useful," State Department spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said to mediapersons yesterday. "But, now it is up to Tehran to respond to the concrete confidence building measures proposed by them," the spokesperson added. "Talks have concluded after a second day. The talks were useful. They reviewed the P-5+1`s proposed concrete confidence-building measures, steps which could pave the way for negotiations leading to a longer-term comprehensive agreement," said Ventrell. There was agreement at the end of the meeting on the Iranian part to meet next at the experts level on March 18 in Istanbul and to have a follow-on political directors meeting with Iran back in Almaty (Kazakhstan) from April 5th to 6th, he said. Though, Ventrell refrained from going into details of the proposals made by P5 plus 1 to Iran. "We have a proposal, a serious updated proposal, on the table. But it would require them to also take some of their reciprocal steps to build confidence that they are taking, in a systematic way, the steps that are necessary to come in line with their international obligations," he said. On the issue of Iran`s nuclear programme, Ventrell said "I`m not going to list them out one by one. But they know what they need to do to come in compliance with Security Council Resolutions, with their IAEA obligations, and to come clean about their nuclear program." "But what these talks are designed to do is have diplomacy is to provide the way forward where we can make, step by step, a process for them to get to that point," he added. "The onus is absolutely on Iran. We have to see how it`s going to play out over the coming weeks," the spokesperson said. "We welcome that Iran was interested in our ideas, is going to come back to the table here, and we`d like to see them take some of the concrete steps they need to come," he exuded hope. Emphasising that there were no any sort of immediate breakthroughs or sudden agreement, he said "we sat back down at the table and we will see what happens here at the follow-on talks." "They know what we expect, but where we can flesh this out in great detail, and again, where they can have their technical experts take a look before the next political directors," Ventrell said. PTI