Iran’s Deputy Top Commander Not Optimistic about Future of Talks with Powers

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri emphasized that he is pessimistic about the attainment of desirable results in Iran’s nuclear talks with the six world powers, although both sides continue the negotiations seriously.
“We shouldn’t pin so much hope on getting a desirable conclusion from the negotiations,” Jazayeri told reporters on the sidelines of a students congress in Tehran on Wednesday.

“The opposite party to the talks is not interested in the settlement of our issues based on justice and our legal and international rights,” he added.

Jazayeri warned that the world powers and their allies are, in fact, attempting to prevent Iran from gaining and using its sources of power, specially in the field of economy.

In relevant remarks in September, Head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali pointed to the western states’ long record of animosity towards Tehran, and voiced pessimism about nuclear talks between Iran and the West.

“The Islamic Iran has grown into a regional power after the end of the (1980-1988 Iraqi imposed) war,” Jalali said, addressing a gathering in the Central city of Qom, adding that’s why the US-led West has been confronting Iran in the last several decades.

Yet, he said the US and its allies avoid a military confrontation with Tehran, “because the 8-year Iraqi-imposed war against Iran proved that the Iranian nation will resist with its entire power in case of a foreign invasion”.

Jalali referred to the nuclear talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany), and said, “If we hold an optimistic view of the West and think that we can settle the issues by talks and negotiations and if we imagine that nuclear energy is our only problem with the West, we will get to nowhere.”

The new round of talks between Tehran and the G5+1 started in Geneva on Monday.

The 10th and last round of negotiations between Iran and the six world powers was held in Vienna from November 18 to 24.

Tehran and the six countries agreed to extend negotiations until July 1 after they failed to reach an agreement on a number of key issues.