Iran’s Zarif Urges US's Practical Measures for Reaching Nuclear Deal
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on the United States to take reassuring and practical measures in the ongoing talks over Tehran's nuclear energy program in a bid to reach a final agreement.
“Maintaining an unreliable and unstable situation (in the nuclear talks) is not acceptable for us, and to reach a comprehensive nuclear deal, Americans should take practical and reassuring measures,” Zarif said on Monday.
He made the remarks in a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York, United States.
Iran and the six powers are in talks to hammer out a lasting accord that would end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran's peaceful nuclear energy program.
On April 2, the two sides reached a framework nuclear agreement after more than a week of intensive negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, with both sides committed to push for a final deal until the end of June.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif expressed Tehran’s willingness to have closer cooperation with Tokyo on the fields of nuclear safety and nuclear disarmament.
Kishida, for his part, said that Japan is ready to have joint cooperation with Iran in the international bodies for nuclear disarmament as well as the fields of peaceful nuclear technology.
Earlier in his speech at the NPT Review Conference on Monday, Zarif had expressed deep concern over the lack of progress toward total elimination of nuclear weapons across the world, saying that despite international agreements, certain countries have even modernized their nuclear arsenals.
