Iran Calls on West to Show Commitment to Talks

A senior Iranian negotiator said that Tehran has been fully committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and cooperated with the UN nuclear agency, and added that world powers should prove their commitments to talks.

Addressing to representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on the sidelines of the second session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 NPT Review Conference in Geneva on Wednesday, Iran’s deputy chief negotiator Ali Baqeri recalled Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and its full commitment to the NPT, and regretted the West’s obstructionism and sanction policy despite Tehran’s goodwill gestures in the past years.

He stated that Tehran is ready to engage with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) to find a solution to all the outstanding issues between the two sides.

“The ball is now in the court of the Group 5+1,” Ali Baqeri added.

He reiterated that that the G5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany) must now demonstrate its commitment to constructive talks with Iran if it is interested in a negotiated solution to the West’s dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program.

Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called on the world powers to take confidence-building measures in a bid to show interaction with Iran, adding that Iran is prepared to cooperate, in return.

“They (the six world powers) have always said that they are ready to interact with Iran and we, too, declared that the principles of our foreign policy are based on logic and if there are honestly eager to cooperate with Iran, we will be ready again,” Salehi told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting on the Caspian Sea legal regime here in Tehran on Tuesday.

He pointed to the recent meeting between Iran and the Group 5+1 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and stated that the group has not fulfilled its pledges yet since the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who presides over the delegations of the six world powers in talks with Iran, was to inform Iran’s chief negotiator Saeed Jalili about the outcomes of her consultations with the six countries, but she has not done so yet.

The Iranian minister further said that the West has no way out but to interact with Iran, and stated, “For interaction, confidence-building measures should be taken…”

On April 6, Iran and the six world powers wrapped up two days of intensive negotiations in Almaty.

The Iranian team was led by Jalili, who is also the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), and the G5+1’s representatives were presided by Ashton.