Nuclear talks between five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany and Iran over the latter's controversial nuclear program continued for a second day here on Thursday.

The second day was featured with a series of close-door, intensive meetings in the bilateral format.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represented the P5+1 group - namely Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. plus Germany - during the talks, met with Mohammad Javad-Zarif, head of the Iranian delegation.

The meetings were "substantial and detailed" with both sides seeking further progress, Ashton's spokesman Michael Mann said.

A senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity on Wednesday evening that the focus of this round of talks is to get into details of "a possible first-step agreement and the parameters of a comprehensive agreement, and to see if we can narrow the remaining gaps necessary to conclude such an agreement."

The new round of talks which began on Wednesday is the third round of negotiations between Iran and the six major countries in more than a month. In the last round of talks that began on Nov. 7 and extended to an unscheduled third day, the two sides failed to nail down an interim deal as expected.

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