Iran’s Zarif: Continued Sanctions Incompatible with Nuclear Agreement
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear program and called on other negotiating parties to adopt proper stance to make possible a final deal over the country's nuclear issue.
“From the very beginning (of the nuclear talks) we have said that sanctions are incompatible with agreements,” Zarif told reporters upon his arrival in the US city of New York on Sunday.
He added that the other party involved in the nuclear negotiations with Iran should choose one of the two options, sanctions or agreement.
Zarif was referring to the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), which is expected to lead to the termination of Western sanctions against Tehran.
With the implementation of the final nuclear agreement, any economic sanctions against Tehran, including those imposed by the UN Security Council, should be terminated, the Iranian minister further said pointing to a framework nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the sextet in Lausanne, Switzerland, earlier this month.
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, they 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.
Zarif is in New York to attend a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at the UN and also hold nuclear talks on the sidelines of the event.
He is scheduled to deliver two speeches to the upcoming conference, one on April 27 on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) whose rotating presidency is assumed by Iran, and the second one on Tuesday, April 28.
The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear. Conferences to review the operation of the Treaty have been held at five-year intervals since it went into effect in 1970.
