DOHA
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Thursday with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh to brief them on the progress of ongoing talks over Iran's nuclear program, diplomatic sources have said.
Kerry gave his GCC counterparts the details of a preliminary deal with Iran in hopes of reassuring the Gulf States who fear the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, the sources told The Anadolu Agency.
Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Osama Nugali had said earlier that Kerry and his Saudi counterpart, Saud al-Faisal, were expected to hold a joint press conference following the meeting.
The meeting came one day after Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, met for three days in the Swiss town of Montreux in hopes of meeting a March 31 deadline for coming up with a political framework agreement.
Kerry announced that negotiations over a political framework for a deal between Iran and the P5+1 grouping (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) would resume on March 15.
Negotiators have until the end of March to agree on the framework before a final deal – for which a June deadline has been set – is to be signed.
