Iran and six world powers will hold talks about Iran’s nuclear program on February 18 in Vienna, Austria, a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Friday.
News of the next meeting between Iran and the “P5+1” – the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany – came as Ashton met Friday with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on the margins of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
The seven-nation talks will come four weeks after Iran started suspending high levels of uranium enrichment as part of an interim deal. As part of the agreement, Iran must eliminate its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium, dismantle some infrastructure that makes enrichment possible, and allow broader and more intrusive inspections of its programs.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian energy purposes, but the P5+1 has pushed it over concerns from the West that it’s a guise for working toward a nuclear weapons program.
The P5+1 includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China.