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The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond met the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United States, as well as the EU High Representative this afternoon in Paris.

The main purpose of the meeting was to consult over the E3+3 negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, which have been conducted over many months by the officials of our countries.

Ministers agreed that the next few weeks would be particularly important given the goal of achieving a political understanding before the end of March.

They identified some areas of progress, but also a number of difficult issues which would have to be resolved if a deal was to be reached.

After the meeting, the Foreign Secretary said:

This was a useful opportunity to coordinate our political positions. All the ministers were clear that we could only reach an agreement with Iran if it delivered our minimum break-out requirement.

The UK will work hard with its partners to achieve this since the benefits of a strong deal would be great for both sides and, in our view, for the region as a whole. But the outcome is still uncertain. Iran is going to have to move further in order to reach a deal which works for us all.

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