Hard, Challenging Path Ahead of Iran, Powers to Reach Comprehensive Deal
(FNA)- EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton underlined that Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) should pave a difficult and challenging path to reach a comprehensive agreement on their differences over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“It is four years now that I have been negotiating with Iran; the interim agreement (the Geneva deal inked in November) is highly important but not as important as a comprehensive deal,” Ashton told reporters after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran Sunday morning.
She described reaching a comprehensive agreement between Iran and the world powers as a difficult and challenging task, and said, “There is no guarantee for our success, but our goal is achieving success with the support of the Iranian nation and the international community and the efforts made by Mr. Zarif.”
Asked if she, as a high-ranking European official, recognizes Iran’s uranium enrichment right, Ashton referred to the text of the Geneva deal, and said, “We have reached an interim agreement based on which we will move forward and that agreement provides you some signals about the viewpoints of us and the international community in this regard.”
On November 24, Iran and the G5+1 sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program. In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities while recognizing its right to enrich uranium, the Sextet of world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and continue talks with the country to settle all problems between the two sides and reach a comprehensive agreement.
In relevant remarks late February, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi underlined that Iran's enrichment right has been clearly stipulated in the Geneva accord sealed by Tehran and the six major world powers late in November, adding that the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had already granted the right to the country, however.
Commenting on the latest remarks by US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman about Iran’s right to enrichment, the senior Iranian nuclear official said that what Sherman forthrightly stated was also clearly mentioned in the Geneva Joint Plan of Action.