Sanctions against Iran have hurt ordinary people and had little impact on those who hold power in the country, Mexico’s former president Ernesto Zedillo said in a joint statement with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari on Friday.
“The long-suffering Iranian people and business sector deserve the relief from sanctions that a comprehensive agreement should bring. The sanctions have hurt ordinary people without damaging the interests of those who hold power,” Zedillo said in a statement released by The Elders, a group of global leaders and peace activists formed by Nelson Mandela in 2007.
“The sanctions regime against Iran will need to be addressed quickly, and with a high sense of responsibility by all concerned,” Zedillo noted, Sputnik reported.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and chairman of the group said in the statement that “the progress that Iran and the six world powers (P5+1) have made on issues that originally seemed insoluble has been remarkable” and “after so much hard work, it would be a lost opportunity of historic proportions if they could not complete the last uphill stretch on the road to a positive outcome”.
Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari added that “a nuclear agreement is a first step in the efforts to find solutions to the problems in the Middle East”.