Tehran, November 17: Head of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) Foreign Relations Sub-committee says the country’s nuclear program is not open to negotiation with P5+1.
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said on Wednesday that the West believes Iran’s nuclear issue is negotiable because they aim to impose pretend and hyped negotiations on Tehran.
The lawmaker was referring to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s recent remarks, proposing that Iran must restart nuclear talks with P5+1.
“The two sides are currently in disagreement over the agenda of negotiations and have not been able to come up with a common agenda,” Fars News Agency quoted him as saying.
“The West did not want Iran to achieve peaceful nuclear technology, but Iran insists on the completion of the peaceful nuclear [fuel] cycle and considers this issue as its red line,” he added.
“The West is trying to portray Iran as the next political and security threat [to it]…but this is contrary to the reality of the Islamic Republic and what regional nations think about Iran and therefore [this scenario] will never be accepted,” he said.
The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of international sanctions on Iran.
Israel, which is widely believed to possess over 300 atomic warheads, recently test fired a new long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The Unites States has also allocated a new budget to its military nuclear program, despite alleged commitment to a nuclear-free world and promises to reduce its nuclear stockpile.
Tehran has categorically refuted Western allegations, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has the right to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
——Agencies