China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin says progress was made during the latest round of negotiations in the form of an expert-level meeting between Iran and the six world powers.
“The countries discussed Iran's nuclear program earnestly and made certain progress,” Liu said on Thursday, Xinhua reported.
“However, it is not unusual to see that a great deal of disagreement still remains, considering the complexity of the issue,” he added.
Liu expressed optimism that the negotiations will continue in a pragmatic manner for the achievement of a long-term solution.
The expert-level meeting was held on July 3 in the Turkish city of Istanbul with the participation of representatives and experts from Iran and the P5+1 - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov expressed Moscow’s satisfaction with the outcome of the talks despite the remaining disagreements.
The office of EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton announced in a statement on Wednesday that Iran and the P5+1 will hold a follow-up technical meeting. However, no date has been given for the meeting.
Iran and the P5+1 agreed to hold the expert-level talks during their negotiations in the Russian capital, Moscow, in June.
The Moscow meetings came after three sessions of plenary talks in Baghdad in May and an earlier round of negotiations in Istanbul in mid-April.
The two sides had, prior to the Istanbul talks, held two rounds of negotiations, one in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2010, and another again in Istanbul in January 2011.
Press TV
