Zebari: Iraq to contribute to Iran – G5+1 session talks
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Baghdad, May 8, IRNA -- Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshyar Zebari said here Monday evening Iran will contribute to Baghdad Iran-Group 5+1 by facilitating the talks.
According to IRNA Audio-Visual Monitoring Service, the Iraqi top diplomat who was speaking with the Al-Arabiya TV network added, “Iraq’s role in that meeting would merely be hosting the event as it best could.”
He also expressed hope that Bagdad nuclear negotiations would yield good and satisfactory results for both sides.
Pointing out that Iraq has good ties with the entire participating countries at the meeting, Zebari said, “The host country can contribute to the important process of talks indirectly.”
The Iran- G5 +1 would meet in Baghdad for a 2nd round of talks in as many months in Iran’s new round of negotiations with the west after a relatively long period of those talks’ full halt.
G5+1 countries are preparing the ground for nuclear talks with Iran, French Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Bernard Valero said in Paris on Wednesday, IRNA reported.
He made the remarks in a meeting with the reporters.
'France is committed to attend the Iran-G5+1 talks,' Valero added.
The official asked Tehran to build trust in its talks with the G5+1 countries in the framework of the IAEA and the UN Security Council resolution in the upcoming Baghdad negotiations.
Iran's top negotiator Sa’eid Jalili asked about the pivots of the future round of talks in Baghdad next month, asserted 'The meeting would firstly center on nuclear disarmament, secondly the theory of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Leader, which is a clear view and can serve as a major approach towards nuclear disarmament, thirdly on preventing proliferation of the nuclear weapons which is amongst major issues of cooperation and fourthly on peaceful use of the nuclear technology as a given and indispensible right of the NPT member states.
By saying this, Jalili convinced the other side that Iran's right is not negotiable and only negotiations should be based on NPT rules and regulations and nothing more.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who led the delegations of the world powers in talks with Iran, said after the talks in a news conference that Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany 'held constructive and useful.'
Talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul were held on Saturday two weeks ago, and the next meeting in Iraq on May 23, which according to Ms. Ashton must 'take us forward in a very concrete way.'
'We expect subsequent meetings will lead to concrete steps towards a comprehensive negotiated solution which restores confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program,' Ashton said.
After more than a year of stalled talks, Iran and the Group 5+1 eventually accepted last month to resume their negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 14 and in case of good progress hold a second round of talks in Iraq's capital city, Baghdad on May 23.
The two sides attended two meetings at Istanbul's Lutfil Kirdar Hall Saturday. Ashton led the delegations of the world powers, while the Iranian side was headed by Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary.
At the first round of talks, the Iranian team of negotiators called on the western parties to take proper measures to build Iran's confidence.
Both Jalili and Ashton voiced satisfaction with the Saturday talks.
The last meeting between the two sides took place in Istanbul in January 2011. Iran and the G5+1 had also held two rounds of multifaceted talks in Geneva in December 2010.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any compelling evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population due to the fact that the country's fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Despite the rights enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Tehran has dismissed the West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing those sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians national resolve to continue with the civilian program.
Courtesy: www.trend.az for the background
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