Published on October 13th, 2013 | http://www.lobelog.com/iran-talks-will-resume-amid-guarded-optimism-high-stakes/

Iran Talks Will Resume Amid Guarded Optimism, High Stakes

by Jasmin Ramsey
via IPS News
Geneva – Almost exactly four months after the election of Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, talks over the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program will resume here on Tuesday.
Negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) were last held in April in Almaty, Kazakhstan, when the Iranian team was headed by former presidential candidate, Saeed Jalili, a hardliner who was defeated by the moderate cleric in Iran’s June election.
The closest Iran came to reaching a nuclear deal under Jalili’s watch was in October 2009 when his direct meeting with then Under Secretary of State William Burns resulted in a tentative agreement that included transferring most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Russia to be processed into fuel rods for medical purposes.