U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry may meet next week with his Iranian counterpart in New York, for the first time since their marathon talks which sealed the outlines of an emerging ground-breaking nuclear deal. U.S. officials said it was possible Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would have talks Monday on the sidelines of the 2015 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference being held at the United Nations. It would be the first meeting between the top diplomats since the April 2 deal reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, setting out the parameters for a historic accord to curtail Iran's suspect nuclear program. Kerry and Zarif huddled with their teams for eight days in a Lausanne hotel to hammer out the framework which will guide the negotiations going forward for a comprehensive deal. Expert and political director level talks are due to resume Wednesday in Vienna in a bid to resolve the toughest issues - lifting sanctions, Iran's research and development program, and the Iranian program's possible military dimensions - by a June 30 deadline. State Department acting spokeswoman Marie Harf also announced Tuesday that Kerry will host visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a dinner at his Boston home on Sunday, at the start of the Japanese leader's key visit to the United States. Kerry will then travel to New York on Monday, where he will deliver remarks at the NPT conference. The U.S. diplomat and Defense Secretary Ash Carter will also meet with their Japanese counterparts in New York. Other bilateral talks could be added to Kerry's schedule, Harf added.
