Israel: Iran Winner of N. Talks with World Powers in Geneva

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that the Iranian negotiating team in Geneva talks with the World Powers over Tehran’s nuclear program cleverly persuaded the West to agree a deal which mostly meets Iran’s objectives.
“I understand the Iranians are walking around very satisfied in Geneva, as well they should because they got everything and paid nothing,” the Israeli prime minister said before meeting US secretary of state John Kerry, who returned to Tel Aviv for a briefing before traveling to Switzerland to participate in nuclear talks with Iran.

“They wanted relief of sanctions after years of grueling sanctions, they got that. They paid nothing because they are not reducing in any way their nuclear enrichment capability. So Iran got the deal of the century, the Breakingnews.ie reported.

Also, French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius arrived in Geneva to attend Friday’s talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

His unexpected attendance, along with that of US Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, has fuelled speculation that an agreement is in the making.

“There has been progress but nothing is hard and fast yet,” Fabius said upon arrival in Geneva.

France, along with the US, has been heavily involved in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and the presence of two top ministers will be a further boost to hopes of a deal that were aroused by this year’s election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and Senior Negotiator in talks with the world powers Seyed Abbas Araqchi stressed that the G5+1 has accepted Tehran’s proposed framework to continue the talks, adding that both sides are resolved to endorse an agreement.

“The first session of the new round of negotiations between Iran and the G5+1 was held and we reviewed the last Geneva meeting (held on October 15 and 16) and the G5+1 announced that they have accepted Iran’s proposed framework,” Araqchi told Iranian reporters after the end of the first session of the talks between the two sides in Geneva on Thursday.

The first session of the multilateral talks between Iran and the world powers in Geneva on Thursday lasted 45 minutes.

Araqchi said all the diplomats attending the Thursday talks believed that the two-day experts meeting held between the two sides in Vienna on October 30 and 31 to discuss the details of Iran’s new proposal for soothing the standoff with the West were “enlightening” and provided good information.

“They (the two sides) are due to start negotiations on the contents and talk about the details. The first step is highly important since we will enter a new atmosphere of cooperation. The last step is also important since it shows where we will reach,” he added.

In relevant remarks on Thursday, the spokesman for Ashton announced that Iran and the G5+1 are holding the most serious part of their talks to settle the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program.

“The negotiations are highly complicated and have reached a serious stage but we cannot discuss the details since we want to focus on the contents,” Mann told reporters in a press conference after the start of the first round of talks between Iran and the world powers in Geneva on Thursday.

He described as good the meetings held between the two sides since yesterday, including the breakfast meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ashton, to confer on the latest developments in the talks between Tehran and the G5+1, and said, “Other meetings are also due to be held this afternoon within different frameworks.”

Asked about the G5+1’s efforts to respond to Iran’s proposal for finding common goals, Mann said, “First, we should be assured that the nuclear goals of the Iranian side are peaceful and then we can come close to a common goal.”

Also, asked about certain sides, specially the Israeli officials’, opposition to the removal of the sanctions against Iran, he said, “We negotiate to reach a good and verifiable agreement to guarantee that the agreement is good for all.”