Two-day talks on Iran’s nuclear program began in Geneva on Tuesday, and while representatives from the convening nations expressed optimism after the day’s negotiations, Israel responded to the diplomatic meeting with calls not to ease up on the economic sanctions against Iran.
The talks involve delegates from Iran and the so-called P5+1 group: the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the Britain, China, U.S., Russia, France plus Germany.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave a PowerPoint presentation called “Closing an unnecessary crisis: Opening new horizons.” The Guardian reports that Zarif’s
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Western powers have repeated unproven claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, which Iran has repeatedly denied. Ahead of the meeting, the senior Iranian negotiator and deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, told media, “We want to guarantee Iran’s right to nuclear technology and assure the other side of the table that our nuclear program is peaceful.”
Michael Mann, a spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy head and lead negotiator at the talks Catherine Ashton, tweeted on Tuesday, “For the first time, very detailed technical discussions continued this afternoon between E3/EU+3 and Iran on the Iranian nuclear programme.” A similar statement was given by an unnamed U.S. official quoted by the New York Times:
Mann also described the Iranian presentation as “very useful,” echoing an unnamed senior U.S. official who said, “The discussion was useful, and we look forward to continuing our discussions in tomorrow’s meetings with the full P5+1and Iran.” Araqchi said, “The proposal that we have introduced has the capacity to make a breakthrough.” However, Araqchi told Reuters that it was “too soon to judge” whether the talks would succeed in breaking the current stalemate.
As the talks began, the Security Cabinet of Israel, believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, stated, “It would be an historic mistake not to take full advantage of the sanctions, by making concessions before ensuring the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
Speaking from Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added, “We want a peaceful world and that does not include an Iran that retains nuclear weapons capability.”
___________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License