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Question: How does the Foreign Ministry assess the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear program?

Answer: At this stage, the efforts of the Six are concentrated mainly on the creation of a sustainable long-term mechanism for negotiating with Iran, which would open the way to a comprehensive political-diplomatic settlement of the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear program. The meeting of the Six with Iranian representatives in Geneva on December 6-7 and the agreement reached at it for the next contact in Istanbul in late January gave not a bad start in this direction.

Now it is important to maintain a constructive attitude towards continuing the dialogue and for both sides to refrain from any steps that might prevent this. There's a need to calmly and sensibly approach organizing the Istanbul meeting. We are ready to contribute actively to this.

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