Iran Not to Accept N. Deal at Any Price

(FNA)- Secretary of Iran's National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani underlined the removal of all sanctions against Tehran as a prerequisite for a nuclear agreement with powers, stressing that Tehran's rights and conditions should be respected in any final deal.

"The speculations that Iran needs a deal at any price is the result of the other side's miscalculations and is wrong," Shamkhani said, addressing a ceremony in the Northern province of Gilan during which the second generation of Iran-made destroyers joined the country's Caspian fleet on Monday.

"The only way to reach a nuclear agreement is through mutual interests and removal of all sanctions," he said, describing the sanctions as cruel, illegal and ineffective.

Noting that Iran has provided the other side an opportunity to end its manufactured crisis over Tehran's nuclear program through logic and within the framework of the international rights, Shamkhani said the resistance economy and not the possible fruits of the negotiations is the path chosen by Iran to improve its economic structure and situation.

He also underscored that building the home-made Damavand destroyer indicated that the sanctions are not effective, and rather motivate Iran's further progress.

His remarks came after the Iranian and American teams of negotiators held several days of talks in Geneva late in February. Then after two days of negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi and President Rouhani's brother and senior aide Hossein Fereidoun as well as US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joined their deputies in the talks.

Then Zarif traveled to Montreux, western Switzerland, last week for another three days of nuclear talks with Kerry.

Representatives of Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) also had deputy-level negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program in the city of Montreux following the Zarif-Kerry meeting.

The talks are expected to resume in Geneva on March 15.

Both Iran and the G5+1 negotiators have underlined that cutting a final deal before the July 10 deadline is possible.