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Iraqi FM: Outcome of Iran-G5+1 talks important to region, world

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Baghdad, May 22, IRNA -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari says outcome of the Iran-G5+1 talks is important to both the region and the world.

“Though outcome of the talks cannot be predicted now, I hope the meeting will be successful,” Zebari told reporters, after a meeting between Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki here on Tuesday.

Zebari pointed to sensitivity of Saudi Arabia and certain other Persian Gulf states to the Iran-G5+1 talks in Baghdad and said that Iraq is an independent country enjoying friendly ties with Iran. “No country should show sensitivity in this connection.”

Noting that Iraq has no part in the talks, Zebari said as the country hosting the Iran-G5+1 talks and regarding its good relations with Iran, Iraq hopes that all impediments will be removed and the two sides would reach favorable results.

On May 23 Iran is to meet representatives of the Group 5+1 in Iraq's capital for the second round of talks which were revived in April in Istanbul after a 15-month delay.

Iran and the Group 5+1 agreed to resume talks in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 14 and a second round in the Iraqi capital city, Baghdad.

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 corroborative 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, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 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 the path.

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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 1018913