Lawmakers praise Iran performance in Geneva talks

Iran’s meeting with the P5+1 is well received by the county’s Parliament (Majlis), with some lawmakers going as far as describing it as a ‘significant progress’.

Hossein Sobhani-Nia, the deputy chairman of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said the negotiations show that Western superpowers have come to terms with Iran’s right to attain peaceful nuclear technology.

“For starters, Western diplomats finally changed their stance in the meeting and adopted a positive approach towards Iran’s nuclear issue,” said Sobhani-Nia.

Sobhani-Nia said that representatives from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) would be wise to use diplomacy to find common ground with Iran on its enrichment activity.

“Over the past thirty years, Iranians have proven that Western pressure will not force them into submission, especially when it comes to their basic rights,” he said.

“Iran succeeded in setting its latest package of proposals as the framework of the negotiations,” Sobhani-Nia said, referring to a comprehensive package of proposals submitted by Iran to world powers on September 9.

Western superpowers, which accuse Iran of refining weapons-grade uranium, have threatened to impose hard-hitting sanctions on the country, unless it addresses concerns over its nuclear activities.

The Tehran government says that not only has it been transparent in terms of opening its facilities to inspection, it has been “too cooperative” in dealing with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili discussed Tehran’s nuclear issue in a Thursday meeting with the representative of the P5+1, the United States, The United Kingdom, France, Russia and China plus Germany.

The sit-down was described as ‘productive’ and ‘a new beginning’ by both sides and is slated to continue until the end of October.

Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said Friday that the negotiations “have started off in a positive mood”, especially since it repeated Iran’s long-standing request for a global nuclear disarmament.

US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, described the Geneva talks, which included the highest-level US-Iranian encounter in three decades, as a “constructive beginning”.

Hassan Kamran-Dastjerdi, a high member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said the meeting owes its breakthrough to the recent package of proposals put forward by Iran.

Dastjerdi said despite the West’s long history of breaking promises, the new round of negotiations showed that the US and European countries have toned down their rhetoric against Iran.

On the same note, Mohammad-Reza Mir-Tajeddini, a member of the Parliament’s governing board, said the Geneva talks was “by far the most important set of meetings held between Tehran and the West on nuclear issues.”

“Iran and the P5+1 have made significant progress in resolving their differences,” said Mir-Tajeddini. “They showed that they are well able to discuss matters of mutual interests.”