Iran warns US not to let nuclear deal slip away

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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/1101/Iran-warns-US-not-to-let-nuclear-deal-slip-away



an’s new Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks during a forum in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. Zarif said that both Iran and the West need a new approach if negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are to succeed.

Iran warns US not to let nuclear deal slip away
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / November 1, 2013

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif today warned that the international community risked missing a chance to strike a deal over Iran’s nuclear program and lambasted a “zero-sum” diplomatic approach in which each side tried to make gains at the expense of the other.

“The result is, 10 years ago Iran had less than 160 centrifuges spinning, now we have over 18,000. Ten years ago Iran’s economy was prospering; now we have sanctions hurting the Iranian people,” said Zarif, speaking at a disarmament conference in Istanbul known as Pugwash. “So I hope we have come to understand that the approach was wrong.”

High-profile negotiations have failed to impose limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions – the core of any deal – despite 1.5 years of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group (the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany). Hope of progress has been rekindled by the election of centrist President Hassan Rouhani, and his stated desire to resolve the nuclear issue in less than a year.

Zarif said today that Iran was ready to “do everything in our negotiations with the P5+1 to ensure that even the perception that Iran has anything but peaceful intentions for its nuclear program will be removed, because we believe that even the perception that Iran pursues a nuclear weapons program is not only wrong, but dangerous.”