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Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, March 21

Xinhua, March 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday said "substantial progress" has been made in Iranian nuclear negotiations.

Kerry's remarks came one day after the P5+1 countries (the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain, plus Germany) and Iran suspended the week-long negotiations, without having reached a framework agreement ahead of the March 31 deadline. (Switzerland-Iran-U.S.)

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MOSCOW -- Russia on Saturday urged France and Germany to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to observe the Minsk agreements.

"(France and Germany should) exert influence on the Ukrainian authorities, so that the obligations supported by Petro Poroshenko as President of Ukraine could be fulfilled," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview aired by TV channel Rossiya One. (Russia-Ukraine)

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UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday welcomed the meeting of the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea, voicing his hope that "it will give a momentum to reinforce the trilateral cooperation mechanism."

"The secretary-general welcomes the seventh Republic of Korea-Japan-China Trilateral Foreign Ministers' Meeting, hosted by the Republic of Korea in Seoul on March 21," said a statement issued by Ban's spokesman. (UN-Trilateral Meeting)

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ANKARA -- Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc on Saturday criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's intervention into settlement process that aims to end more than three-decade-old Kurdish insurgency.

"The president's statements on the issue and his criticisms on the Turkish government could fray the government. Therefore, it's better for him to convey these views directly to the prime minister," Arinc told reporters. (Turkey-Government) Endi