Powers Reneging on Agreed Undertakings in Nuclear Talks with Iran, Says Salehi

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi underlined Tehran’s willingness to interact with the world, but meantime, complained that the world powers welsh on what they agree to undertake in the nuclear talks with Iran.

“We welcome interaction as Iran’s logic is based interaction with the world. We are not after confrontation,” Salehi said in Tehran on Sunday, addressing a ceremony to commemorate the Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated by the foreign spy agencies.

He said the nuclear negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) are progressing well, but “they are lowballing with regard to certain issues that we had agreed on.”

Salehi underscored that Tehran is after a nuclear agreement with the world powers “but not at any price”.

In relevant remarks last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underscored the necessity for the termination of all sanctions against Tehran under a possible final deal, but meantime, said the country was not ready to pay any price for it.

“We want the removal of sanctions, but its price and cost is also highly important to us. We will not accept to have the sanctions removed at the price of national honor and interests,” Zarif said, addressing students at Kazakhstan’s Law School.

He stressed Iran’s willingness to develop relations with the western states, but meantime said the sanctions policy is an enemy of good relations. “… When the sanctions exist, we cannot have good ties with those countries which have imposed them.”

Noting that the Iranian people are not optimistic about the relations with the West, he said the western states have created many problems for the Iranians and therefore, settlement of the country’s problems with the West needs time.

S. African FM blasts sanctions against Iran as “illogical, illegal”

On the other hand,South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane stressed his country’s opposition to the sanctions against Iran, calling the embargos as “illogical and illegal“.

“We have never supported the sanctions against Iran and believe that they are illogical and illegal,” Mashabane said, addressing the inauguration ceremony of the 12th Joint Iran-South Africa Economic Commission co-chaired by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran on Sunday.

She referred to the nuclear talks between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany), and said, “We support the trend of these negotiations and believe, within the same framework, that the US Senate measure can slacken this trend.”

Zarif, for his part, described relations between Tehran and Pretoria as excellent, and said, “We can witness expansion of bilateral ties in all fields using the existing capacities.”

The US Senate on Thursday advanced a legislation that would allow the Congress to review a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.

After nine days of hard work in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iran and the G5+1 reached an understanding on April 2 which laid the ground for them to start drafting the final nuclear deal over Tehran’s nuclear energy program ahead of a July 1 deadline.

Reading out a joint statement at a press conference with EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini in Lausanne on April 2, Zarif said according to the agreement, all the US, EU and UN Security Council sanctions against Iran would be lifted under the final deal.

The delegations of the seven nations are now drafting the final deal.

FNA

R.S