EU ministers to meet Iran's Zarif Monday: European source

(BRUSSELS) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif will meet several of his EU counterparts on Monday, a European source said, ahead of a June 30 deadline for an international accord on Tehran's nuclear programme.

"This will be a political meeting as part of the current negotiations, ahead of the final round," the source said Sunday, adding that the EU ministers attending would be Britain's Philip Hammond, France's Laurent Fabius and Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Zarif had in any case been due to meet in Luxembourg with Fabius, who said in Jerusalem on Sunday that any deal with Iran must be verifiable.

"We think that we must be extremely firm and that, if an agreement is to be reached, that agreement must be robust," Fabius said at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "That means that it must be able to be verified."

Monday's meeting will be held on the sidelines of a full meeting of EU foreign ministers which will discuss extending sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict and the launch of a naval operation targeting people-traffickers in the Mediterranean.