Zarif: Iran Not to Negotiate Over Its Rights

(FNA)- Iran will never make a compromise over its rights, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday night 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.

"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, specially with the American team, and said once these consultations and coordination are made, the Iranian and world powers' delegations will continue the negotiations tomorrow.

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.

"We are trying to start compiling the text of an understanding tomorrow," Araqchi, who is also an Iranian deputy foreign minister, told FNA in Geneva on Thursday evening.

"Compiling a written text is a time-consuming, lengthy and hard process and a consensus is needed for each and every word of it," he added.

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.

Araqchi said that the final meeting between Zarif and Ashton along with a few experts from the two sides which was due to be held at 6pm (Geneva time) to conclude the results is likely to postponed to Friday due to the very busy schedule today.

Earlier today, Araqchi had said that “Iran’s goal is endorsement of an agreement between the two sides and the other side also has the same view”.

“The first session of the new round of negotiations between Iran and the G5+1 was held and we reviewed the last Geneva meeting (held on October 15 and 16) and the G5+1 announced that they have accepted Iran’s proposed framework,” Araqchi told Iranian reporters after the end of the first session of the talks between the two sides in Geneva on Thursday.

Araqchi said all the diplomats attending the today talks believed that the two-day experts meeting held between the two sides in Vienna on October 30 and 31 to discuss the details of Iran's new proposal for soothing the standoff with the West was “enlightening” and provided good information.

“They (the two sides) are due to start negotiations on the contents and talk about the details. The first step is highly important since we will enter a new atmosphere of cooperation. The last step is also important since it shows where we will reach,” he added after the morning session.

Araqchi said that the representatives of Iran and the G5+1 would discuss the three steps proposed by Tehran in the afternoon.

He also told reporters that there will be more talks between Iran and the six world powers in coming weeks, adding that Geneva will likely be the host to those talks as well.

Later Mann said that the talks between the six world powers and Iran are making progress.

"We are making progress in the talks," Michael Mann told reporters.

"Catherine Ashton will meet with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif Friday morning in a bid to have more time for resolving some issues," he said.