More political will and creativities are needed to overcome difficulties in the Iranian nuclear talks, the Chinese envoy said Thursday after the one-day meetings in Vienna.
After the trilateral meetings of top diplomats between the United States, the European Union (EU) and Iran, political directors of the so called P5+1 group (China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States, and Germany) and Iran met Thursday, trying to narrow gaps for a possible agreement by the Nov. 24 deadline.
The talks were reportedly to have some progress.
Wang Qun, China's envoy to the Iranian nuclear talks and Director-General of the Department of Arms Control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, said the sides are still faced with difficulties in reaching a deal by the deadline.
But he also noted that progress made in the talks should not be overlooked, and more political will and creative ideas are needed for a breakthrough.
Significant gaps between Iran and Western states are still unresolved over Tehran's uranium enrichment program, the core issue of the talks.
Western states want to substantially increase the time required for Iran to make a nuclear bomb, so called "break out" time, demanding Tehran to provide greater transparency of its nuclear program that the UN inspectors could promptly detect and effectively respond to the "breakout", asking Tehran to significantly lower the number of centrifuges in order to uranium enrichment capacity.
However, Tehran insists that its uranium enrichment capacity is not beyond its need for nuclear power plant and research.
Uranium could be both used to fuel nuclear power plant and nuclear weapon if further enriched.
According to reports, Iran currently has installed around 19,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, of which 10,190 are operating. Most of the centrifuges Iran owns are IR-1, an old model centrifuge with relatively low Uranium-enrichment capacity. Tehran has also installed around 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges, which are assessed to be three to five times more efficient than IR-1 centrifuges.
According to Iran's official media IRNA on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said another session of talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton as well as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be held in the next three or four weeks.
Zarif said none of the sides believed in extending the talks, Iran's IRIB said.
The Iranian minister on Tuesday told Xinhua Tehran is "exploring various possibilities" to achieve an agreement in nuclear talks.
Joe Cirincione, President of Ploughshares Fund, also servers as a member of Kerry's International Security Advisory Board, told Xinhua that he believes Iran and the United States are not far apart from each other actually, given that after nearly one-year tough negotiations, both sides want to put an end to this issue, reaching an agreement by the deadline is still possible, however, political decision is needed.