Legislator Describes West as “Untrustworthy” Party to Talks with Iran

A senior Iranian lawmaker said the West’s long record of disloyalty to pledges and agreements with Iran has undermined Tehran’s trust in their offers.

“Due to the track record shown by the westerners so far, they cannot be trusted,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Esmayeeli told FNA on Saturday.

He noted that world powers did not enter the negotiations with Iran in a logical manner, but meantime hoped for a more logical stance by the Group 5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) in the new round of talks between the seven countries in Almaty.

Iran and the six world powers wrapped up their 4th round of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, this afternoon after they agreed to continue the negotiations through their deputy chief negotiators.

The negotiating teams of Iran and the sextet started their fourth meeting at Almaty’s Rixos Hotel about two hours ago.

During the session the European members of the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) requested that Iran’s deputy chief negotiator Ali Baqeri and his counterpart Helga Schmidt continue the negotiations in a fifth round.

Diplomats privy to the talks in Almaty said the seven countries are expected to meet again following the talks between Baqeri and Schmidt to approve issues raised during different rounds of talks in Almaty.

The delegations of the seven countries attended two rounds of talks on Friday morning and afternoon. The third and fourth rounds were held this morning and afternoon.

Iranian negotiators are led by Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili and the G5+1’s representatives are presided by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Iran had announced a day prior to the start of the talks that it would enter the negotiations with the G5+1 with clear, groundbreaking proposals.

Political observers believe that the West has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.

Iran has so far ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives, saying that renouncing its rights under the NPT would encourage the world powers to put further pressure on the country and would not lead to a change in the West’s hardline stance on Tehran.

Iran is under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. The United States and the European Union have ratcheted up their sanctions on Iran this year to force it to curb its nuclear program.

Iranian officials have always shrugged off the sanctions, saying that pressures make them strong and reinvigorate their resolve to further move towards self-sufficiency.