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Iran: Nuclear talks 'under pressure' doomed to fail

Xinhua, March 8, 2012

• Iran's Majlis (parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said Wednesday that future nuclear talks between Iran and the world's major powers would end without any productive result if "the West continues to put Iran under pressure," local satellite Press TV reported.

  "If they (the West) seek to go with their previous course of action and try to force concessions under pressure, negotiations will yield no results," Larijani was quoted as saying.

  The Iranian speaker meanwhile reiterated that Iran is not after nuclear bombs, according to the report.

  The six world powers that used to engage in Iranian nuclear talks have accepted an Iranian offer to revive negotiations after months of stalemate, the European Union's (EU) foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

  Ashton said she received a letter in February from Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who said Tehran wanted to reopen negotiations with the six powers -- three EU countries of France, Britain and Germany plus China, Russia and the United States.

  Ashton said she had accepted on behalf of the six countries the offer to resume talks in her reply to Jalili's letter, but the date and venue for the talks are yet to be decided.

  "We hope that Iran will now enter a sustained process of constructive dialogue which will deliver real progress in resolving the international community's long-standing concerns on its nuclear program," she said.

  Meanwhile, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Ali-Asghar Khaji urged the West to attend the next round of nuclear talks with more initiatives, Press TV reported on Wednesday.

  "We hope Western negotiating sides will promote innovation in upcoming talks," Khaji said Tuesday in a meeting with Swedish Deputy Foreign Minister Frank Belfrage in Stockholm.

  The West's efforts to exert pressure on the Iranian nation through unilateral sanctions are contrary to key principles of human rights, Khaji said, adding that, such moves, however, will have no impact on the will of the Iranian nation to pursue their absolute rights.

  In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Wednesday that China welcomes the positive progress made by the international community in resolving Iran's nuclear issue.

  Liu said France, Britain, Germany, China, Russia and the U.S. recently reached a consensus with Iran on resuming the talks, adding that China has always worked to peacefully resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue, and has made positive efforts to push for resumption of the talks.

  "We will work with the other five members of the six-nation mechanism to push for the early resumption of talks with Iran, maintain the dialogue process and find a comprehensive, long-term and appropriate way to resolve the issue," Liu said.

  But on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed skepticism about Iran's willingness to negotiate on its controversial nuclear program.

  "I am a little skeptical ... I think Iran continues to be two- faced," Juppe told the local private i-Tele television.

  "That's why I think we have to continue to be extremely firm on sanctions, which in my view are the best way to prevent a military option that would have unforeseeable consequences," Juppe said.

  On Tuesday, the office of Iran's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) representative in Vienna said in a statement that Iran would allow the UN watchdog experts to visit Parchin military base.

  The decision to resume negotiation with Tehran also came as Israel threatened to bomb suspected Iranian nuclear sites, which was said to be possibly related to the development of nuclear weapons.

  The West accuses Iran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons, but the latter denies by saying that its nuclear program is only for "peaceful" use.

  The last round of nuclear talks between Iran and the six countries held in January 2011 in Turkey's Istanbul produced no concrete results.

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