Iran Says Nuclear Deal Possible if World is 'Sincere'
A top Iranian negotiator said Friday that a comprehensive nuclear agreement with the West remains possible before a November deadline, as long as world powers are sincere during upcoming talks.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi, deputy foreign minister for European and U.S. affairs and a member of Iran's nuclear negotiations team, made the remarks during a meeting with Czech officials in Prague.
"As long as the P5+1 are sincere and they have a constructive approach, we can reach a good result before November 24," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
Takht-Ravanchi was referring to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States) and Germany, with whom Iran has been negotiating since last year.
New talks between Iran and the P5+1 nations will start in New York on September 18, with outgoing European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton chairing the discussions.
The West has long accused Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb, an allegation that the Islamic republic has consistently denied, insisting its nuclear activities are purely for civilian energy purposes.
The two sides struck an interim deal last November under which Iran agreed to curbs on some parts of its nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief. However the talks later ran into difficulties and a July deadline for a final accord was missed. The discussions were extended until November 24.
The central sticking point in the talks is the level of uranium enrichment Iran would be allowed to conduct under a nuclear deal. In exchange for agreeing to limits, Tehran wants sanctions to be lifted.
The New York talks will be held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly opening, with the U.S. side being led by Under Secretary Wendy Sherman.
State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said she was unsure when foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, would gather around the table.
U.S. and Iranian officials were meeting for a second day of negotiations in Switzerland Friday as they work towards hammering out a full nuclear deal ahead of a November deadline.
The U.S. team led by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman began meeting Thursday with an Iranian delegation led by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a luxury Geneva hotel.
No information filtered out from the first day of closed-door talks, and it remained unclear whether they would wrap up Friday or continue into Saturday.
EU and U.S. officials did announce Thursday that broader talks would be held on September 18 in New York between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, and would be led by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
That will mark the first meeting of the so-called P5+1 and Iran since they failed to meet a July 20 deadline for implementing a comprehensive and complex deal on curbing Tehran's enrichment capabilities and number of centrifuges.
The deadline has been pushed forward to November 24.
The West suspects Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the program is purely for peaceful purposes.
In exchange for accepting curbs on its nuclear activities, Iran wants a slew of crippling U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions to be lifted.
But any deal will have to be approved by the Islamic leadership in Tehran as well as by the U.S. Congress, where many lawmakers are seeking to impose even tougher sanctions on Iran.
The Geneva talks come after Washington last weekend unleashed a new round of sanctions against Tehran.
Harf meanwhile called Thursday on Iran to "fully and without delay" cooperate with U.N. watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after its inspectors were refused access to a military base outside Tehran that they have been trying to visit since 2005.
Over the past year, Tehran and Washington have pursued exhaustive talks on the nuclear deal, marking a dramatic turnaround in relations for two countries that had virtually no official communication since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled the Western-oriented shah.
Switzerland, which represents U.S. interests in Tehran and has hosted many of the nuclear talks, only applies "targeted" economic sanctions on Iran that do not include oil.
The Swiss city of Lausanne has since 2003 hosted Iranian Oil Company subsidiary the Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl (NICO), which for the past two years has been the target of EU sanctions.
Former NICO chief Seyfollah Jashnsaz in early July hailed "Switzerland's fairer approach to Iran", pointing out that the subsidiary had ensured $100 billion worth in Iranian oil sales between 2010 and 2014.
"We apply targeted sanctions. We do not want the sanctions to hurt everyone, especially in the civil society," Swiss Economic Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Livia Leu told public broadcaster RTS.
Source: Agence France Presse
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