Iran Final Winner With or Without Nuclear Deal, Zarif Says
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The dignity and self-esteem the Iranian nation has gained over the years makes the country the winner in nuclear talks with world powers, irrespective of the final outcome, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
“We are the winner whether the (nuclear) negotiations yield result or not,” Zarif, who is also the country's chief nuclear negotiator, said in an address to a Tuesday session of Iran’s Assembly of Experts in Tehran.
“The capital we have obtained over the years is dignity and self-esteem, a capital that could not be retaken,” Zarif noted, adding that the West also acknowledges this fact.
On the other hand, the top Iranian diplomat added, the West has got no capital but “the leverage of sanctions” and “pressures on the United Nations”, which are not new and have been in place since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution.
He also noted that Iran’s “constructive diplomacy” has convinced the negotiating parties to change their negative views about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The minister, however, hinted at the difficulties in talks with Americans because of the “hard-liners in the US Congress”.
Back on Monday, a group of 47 Republican senators wrote an open letter to Iran's leaders, warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with US President Barack Obama's administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.
Zarif later reacted to the letter, deriding that as a “propaganda ploy” that lacks legal value.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are in talks to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
The two sides held bilateral and multilateral negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva earlier in February to narrow down the remaining differences ahead of a deadline for a final agreement by July 1.
