Iran nuclear talks to resume in Geneva Thursday

Talks between experts from Iran and world powers on implementing last month's nuclear deal will resume on Thursday in Geneva, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday. "The technical talks will be resumed tomorrow and continue until Friday" in Geneva, Nabila Massrali told Agence France Presse via email. The experts held four days of talks in Vienna last week but the Iranians walked out after Washington expanded its sanctions blacklist against Tehran. Under a landmark November 24 deal struck in Geneva, Iran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear program for six months in exchange for modest sanctions relief and a promise not to impose new sanctions. But the United States last week put a dozen overseas companies on a blacklist for evading its sanctions, angering Tehran even though Washington said the new measures did not constitute new sanctions. But Tehran said the measures were "against the spirit" of the November 24 deal. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed Iran's "discontent" in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian news agency Fars reported on Monday. The State Department confirmed the call took place. During the six-month nuclear freeze, which has not started yet, Iran and the powers aim to hammer out a long-term comprehensive accord to end once and for all the standoff over Iran's nuclear program after a decade of failed attempts and rising tensions. Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons but many in the international community suspect otherwise, and neither Israel -- widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself -- nor Washington have ruled out military action. The six powers, known as the P5+1, are the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany. Abbas Araqchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, told Belgian newspaper Le Soir on Tuesday that after speaking to Ashton -- the P5+1's chief negotiator -- Tehran had "decided to resume" the talks. Diplomats told AFP that the talks last week in Vienna were heavy-going as the parties sought to work out a carefully calibrated process of when sanctions would be eased, when the nuclear freeze would start and how it would be verified. They insisted however that the discussions were not any harder than expected and that the differences would eventually be ironed out. Iran's nuclear freeze will be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.