VIENNA, November 7 (RIA Novosti) — A meeting of international mediators on Iranian nuclear program in Vienna helped moving closer to a breakthrough in talks with Tehran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday.
"The organizational meeting of international mediators in Vienna on November 7 has helped us to move forward in this direction," Ryabkov, who heads the Russian delegation at Iran nuclear talks, said.
"All participants [of the meeting] voiced additional proposals. We are determined to put it all together in such a way that key compromises could be reached before the deadline [on November 24]," the diplomat added.
Western countries and Israel accuse Iran of attempting to develop a nuclear weapon under the guise of a civilian nuclear program, while Tehran says that its nuclear development is aimed purely at meeting the country's growing energy needs and achieving other peaceful goals.
In November 2013, during the talks held in Geneva, the P5+1 group of international mediators comprising Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Germany agreed to reach a deal with the Tehran delegation guaranteeing the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program by July 2014. The deadline for the agreement was later postponed to November 2014.
In September, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani once again confirmed Tehran's readiness to secure a historic nuclear deal with the West, but underscored that the country was not going to give up its peaceful nuclear program.
