Iran's head nuclear negotiator gives positive signals on Kazakhstan talks with P5+1 group

Iran's head nuclear negotiator, Secretary of the Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili said that overall the talks with the P5+1 group were positive, Press TV reported live.

"We have yet to reach a desired point, but so far it is good," Jalili said.

Speaking at the press conference following the second day of the nuclear talks between Iran's negotiating team and the "Six powers", Jalili said that these talks are regarded as positive, and they can lead to further steps.

Jalili also said that following the expert level meeting of the sides in Istanbul, Iran's negotiating team and the "Six powers" will meet again in Kazakhstan on 5-6 April.

Further on Jalili revealed some details of the conducted negotiations.

"During the talks in Moscow, Iran has put forward a comprehensive plan with defined principles and goals of the negotiations," Jalili said. "This plan was supposed to be reviewed, and the opposing side was supposed to respond."

"Yesterday they've put some proposals in return, and they addressed some of the points previously mentioned in Iran's plan. Some of the points in the response compared to what they have put forward, are more realistic, as the group tried in some points to get closer to Iran, which is a positive sign," he noted.

Jalili added that there is a need to establisha new mechanism that would make the made proposals be put to into force.

Speaking about the prepositions that Iran has put forward at the talks, Jalili said the Islamic Republic has put forward 5 key points, some of which, he highlighted.

"The key point is that Iran's nuclear rights should be acknowledged as a legal right," he said. "We also expressed our opposition towards weapons of mass destruction, and we also spoke on transparency agreements and regional cooperation."

He added that in order for the talks to be successful, mutual confidence is required.

"We need to put forward a swift and correct strategy that both sides can agree on, to enter the negotiations," Jalili added. "A correct strategy, the purpose of negotiations should be co-operation."

Iran's head nuclear negotiator also noted that the pressure will not work in negotiations, adding that Iran's nuclear work is under complete supervision of the IAEA.

"Iran has made good scientific progress considering the peaceful nuclear activity. We're making progress day by day," he said.

Jalili added that Iran's right to enrichment is the right acceptable to all NPT members, thus Iran reserves this right.

"We need it to meet our needs, to achieve our goals, be it 5 percent enrichment or 20 percent," Jalili said. "At the time when we were not able to enrich uranium ourselves, we announced to the P5+1 group that we need it for our medical needs. They did not provide us with it, so we did it ourselves."

Jalili added: "How we are going to use it - depends on our needs."

Iran and P5+1 group have wrapped up the nuclear negotiations in Kazakhstan today after two days of talks.

The sides agreed to hold expert level talks in Istanbul on 17-18 March, which will be followed by another Iran-P5+1 talks in Kazakhstan.

"We can start off with smaller steps towards balanced cooperation," Jalili said. "The expert talks in Istanbul can define how these steps should be taken."

In 2012, representatives of P5+1 group and Iran held three rounds of talks in Istanbul (April 14), Baghdad (May 23-24) and Moscow (June18-19). None of these meetings resulted in breakthroughs on disputed nuclear issues.

Previously talks between the "Six Powers" and Iran were not conducted for over a year.

The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.

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.


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