Russia urges mediators not to place new demands on Iran

The six world powers involved in Iranian nuclear talks should not submit new demands to Teheran, a senior Russian diplomat said Friday. "We call on our partners to refrain from tabling new demands which are able to undermine the trust already reached and to throw the situation back to the starting point," Interfax news agency quoted Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, as saying. The diplomat urged all sides involved in the talks between the P5+1 group of mediators (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) and Iran to strictly adhere to an interim deal clinched in Geneva on Nov. 24, 2013. He admitted there was a lot of work ahead to coordinate numerous parameters over the Iranian nuclear program and to reconciliate sometimes opposite interests and approaches. According to the diplomat, the P5+1 group may resume negotiations with Iran on Feb. 18 in New York, though a final decision has not been made yet. "All parties show a desire to continue the talks," Ulyanov said. On Jan. 20, the P5+1 group and Iran started the implementation of the first step of the Geneva interim deal. As part of the deal, which is valid for six months and can be renewed, Iran suspended 20 percent uranium enrichment as of Jan. 20. The country also started the process of diluting and oxidizing its 196-kg stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium. In return, the West began to remove some sanctions on Iran's monetary and petrochemical sectors