Post date: Sep 12, 2013 2:18:19 PM
Iran's new envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency says his country will cooperate with the U.N. watchdog in order to "overcome existing issues once and for all," potentially signalling a more flexible approach from Tehran's new administration.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA ( SEPTEMBER 12, 2013) (REUTERS) - Iran will cooperate with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Tehran's new envoy to the IAEA said in Vienna on Thursday (September 12), potentially signalling a more flexible approach fromTehran's new administration.
"There is a strong political will on the Iranian side to constructively interact with the respective partners on nuclear issues and we hope there would be the same approach and political will on the other side. In this context, we should not lose sight of the fact that interaction is not a one-sided road. I also stressed that we would continue to cooperate with the agency in good faith to find agreed modalities to overcome existing issues once and for all," a soft-spoken career diplomat and disarmament expert, Ambassador Reza Najafi, told a news conference in Vienna.But Najafi, at his first board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also repeated Iran's position that it would not give up what it sees as its rights to a peaceful nuclear energy programme.
"Iran has always expressed its readiness for a meaningful, result-oriented and time-bound negotiations based on mutual respect and win-win agreed solution. As it was underlined by our president, if the other side wants a proper response, they should speak to Iran, not with the language of threats or sanctions but with the language of respect", the ambassador said.
Iran is at loggerheads with Western powers in particular, who fear that its nuclear programme may be designed to give it the capacity to build nuclear weapons.
It has been engaged in on-off negotiations with major world powers for more than a decade, and has been subjected to several rounds of U.N. and Western economic sanctions.
Separately, Iran and the IAEA have held ten rounds of talks since early 2012 in an attempt by the U.N. agency to resume its investigation into what it calls the "possible military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear programme, so far without success.
A new meeting is set for Sept. 27 in Vienna, seen by Western diplomats as a key test of the new Iranian government's intentions.
When asked if he expected concrete results from the September 27 talks Najafi said: "It is a document which should be negotiated and agreed by both sides so let's not prejudge the result of the (September) 27 negotiations and talks between Iran and the IAEA. Let's wait . We will sit together, we will directly and frankly discuss the differences. We hope that we can solve those differences and come up with an agreed modality which could start a, indeed, substantive work on the issue."