Iran Says N-Talks Serious & Constructive, ’Israel’ Concerned

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that after two days of intensive negotiations with his US counterpart, Tehran and Washington have had “serious, useful and constructive” talks in the last few days, but that there is still a long way ahead before a final nuclear deal can be struck, FNA reported.

Zarif warned Washington of the repercussions of exerting pressure on Tehran during the ongoing nuclear talks would receive negative reactions.

Asked by Iran’s state-run TV about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent remarks in London that Washington would leave the talks if Iran did not take a “productive” decision to prove the “peaceful” nature of its nuclear program, Zarif said, “We didn’t see any sign of such remarks in the negotiations, but of course it is clear that any side which feels that its interests, view and goals aren’t considered, it may leave the negotiations.”

Stressing that Iran is ready for reaching a final deal, he said, “We are after a solution which recognizes the Iranian people’s rights completely and the negotiating sides surely know that if the Iranian people’s rights are not respected and their technical achievements are ignored, there won’t be a deal.”

Zarif underlined that Iran is not after leaving the talks, and said, “We have entered the negotiations within international frameworks and with political resolve, and we have not and will not be entangled in media games.”

“We have stepped into these negotiations for the sake of our own political goals, and not for the objectives of others,” he said.

Asked to express his judgment about the final results of the talks, the Iranian top diplomat said, “As long as we haven’t reached definite and final results, it would be still early to express a judgment because the negotiations may be led to a deadlock or get out of the deadlock by even one single sentence and we should wait for the attainment of agreements on details as well.”

Asked about the possibility of extending the negotiations, he said, “We don’t think about an extension since we believe that extending the talks will not benefit anyone and will not benefit the settlement of issues.”

“We should reach an agreement on all details because there is already an understanding attained about the generalities,” Zarif underscored.

Noting that the details have taken the time of negotiators, he said, “If we cannot reach an agreement over the details, it will be very hard to speak about an agreement.”

Asked about some western media news on the achievement of an agreement on general points in this round of the Geneva talks, Zarif said, “There won’t be a detailed or general agreement, rather we believe that agreement (over the generalities and details) should take place simultaneously. Of course, we cannot make an agreement over all issues in one moment, and we are, thus, necessitated to study issues one by one and we are doing the same thing right now.”

Zarif said some positive steps have been taken over certain topics, “but the final agreement is to include a complete set of general and detailed points”.

The Iranian and American teams of negotiators started several days of talks in Geneva on Friday. Then after two days of negotiations, Zarif, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi and President Rouhani’s brother and senior aide Hussein Fereidoun as well as Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joined their deputies in the talks.

For hAraqchiis part, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Sayyed Abbas Araqchi expressed the hope that the talks between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can make progress along with the nuclear negotiations with the world powers.

“Today, I will meet Yukiya Amano (the IAEA chief) to settle the issues which have remained between Tehran and the IAEA since past,” Araqchi said in an interview with Iran’s state-run TV on Tuesday.

“The meeting will focus on present cooperation between Iran and the Agency and will be aimed at resolving the issues remaining from the past or the current issues so that we can make better progress in cooperation,” he added.

“Recently, Amano had a good meeting with Mr. Zarif (the Iranian foreign minister) in Munich and it was decided in the meeting that Iran and the IAEA strengthen and increase talks at high levels and we hope that they will lead to the expansion of Iran-IAEA present cooperation,” Araqchi said.

“Anyway, some issues have remained from the past which should be settled as soon as possible. We have had good moves in the past year. A cooperation framework was signed between Iran and the Agency and we made some moves and cooperation based on that,” he added.

Araqchi stressed the necessity for a review over the two sides’ cooperation in the last several years and finding ways to accelerate and facilitate such cooperation, and said, “God willing, we can wrap up issues with the IAEA as soon as possible concurrent with progress in the negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany).”

Russia voiced confidence on Tuesday that world powers and Iran would be able to reach a comprehensive accord over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program by a June 30 final deadline.

Moscow’s chief nuclear negotiator said after the latest round of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad in Geneva that tangible progress was being made.

“We are satisfied to see every new meeting achieve further progress,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.

“There is a growing confidence that an agreement will be reached by the assigned deadline — in other words, June 30,” Ryabkov said in the Swiss city.

The ZioNetanyahunist entity expressed its concerns over the progress witnessed in the nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers as the Israeli PM stressed the importance to delivering a speech at the Congress in an attempt to halt the nuclear agreement.

The Israeli analysts considered that the nuclear agreement would grant Iran a greater power in the region.