Zarif: Iran Not to Negotiate Over Its Rights

Iran will never make a compromise over its rights, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said after his French counterpart Laurent Fabius called on Tehran earlier today to make certain concessions to make progress in the talks with the World powers possible,according to FNA.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran makes no deal over its right,” Zarif told reporters after a hectic and successful day of diplomacy in meetings with the representatives of the six world powers (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) in Geneva Thursday night.

Fabius was quoted by AFP as saying in a TV interview earlier today that Iran should make certain concessions in its nuclear program as demanded by the world powers in a bid to make it possible for the nuclear talks to move ahead.

In similar remarks, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi also strongly rejected some Israeli media reports alleging that Iran had accepted to suspend its nuclear enrichment program for 6 months, and said, “Enrichment is important to us and is our redline.”

Elsewhere in his remarks tonight, Zarif described the meetings between the Iranian negotiators and their Group 5+1 counterparts as “very good”.

Zarif pointed out that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who presides over the delegations of the world powers in the talks with Iran, needed to make certain consultations with the G5+1 delegations, especially with the American team, and said once these consultations and coordination are made, the Iranian and world powers’ delegations will continue the negotiations today.

Ashton’s Spokesman Michael Mann also said Thursday evening that Ashton would have a breakfast meeting with the Group 5+1 negotiators to work out a final view over Iran’s proposal and then attend a meeting with Zarif Friday morning.

The negotiating teams of Iran and the six world powers (Russia, China, the US, France and Britain plus Germany) had a 45-minute session of talks in Geneva Thursday morning followed by a quadrilateral meeting between the Iranian delegation and their German, French and British counterparts, and several more bilateral meetings between the Iranian negotiators and their Russian, Chinese and American counterparts.

At the end of the meetings, Iran’s senior negotiator Seyed Abbas Araqchi told FNA that Iran and the six world powers are likely to draft an agreement on Friday to start resolving their decade-long nuclear standoff.

Araqchi described the sideline-meetings as “very good” and “useful”, but said, “It is still too early to have an assessment. But, I personally have more hopes now, and am more optimistic than this morning.”

“Iran’s talks with the three European countries were very useful and the bilateral talks, including the ones with the US, Russia and China, were good too,” he continued.

R.S