Zarif Interprets Khamenei’s Remarks

While the head of the current Iranian administration talks about continuing the nuclear talks till final “victory,” Majlis representatives yesterday grilled his foreign minister for hours and apparently emerged not happy with his response. Meanwhile, Raja News news site, closely affiliated to the country establishment, has questioned the concessions that Iranian officials claim they have derived from the West at the talks. The prime minister of Israel once again said that recognizing Iran’s right to any enrichment is a mistake while the chancellor of Germany expressed her disagreement with the prime minister. On top of all this, there are new reports that republicans in the US Senate continue their efforts to pass new sanctions against Iran.

It is in this atmosphere that during après conference with his Iraqi counterpart Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif presented his interpretation of ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks the day before officials talks began between Iran and the P5+1 group of states last November. “The supreme leader has said that people and the government of Iran will stand by their commitments. We shall not breach our word and will do what we have promised to do and shall continue. We are serious in the talks.”

Ayatollah Khamenei’s official website signaled that the supreme leader had lost hope in the talks. “Some members of the previous and current governments think that the nuclear talks will result in the resolution of the issue. I mentioned in the beginning of last year that I am not optimistic about the talks and that they will not go anywhere. As you see, they have not gone anywhere. But at the same time I do not oppose talks.” Khamenei is quoted to have said.

On his return from Vienna, minister Zarif said, “What the supreme leader mentioned is the view of the Iranian people and the problem they have in the way to confront America and the Western states over the nuclear issue and the way they have treated Iran in the last decades which has resulted in a deep distrust of the West and particularly the US.”

It appears that the latest round of talks between Iran and the West has actually boosted Rouhani’s hopes of reaching a final agreement on the nuclear issue. This is something that came out of his speech last Tuesday when he spoke to people in the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. “Officials completed the first round of talks in a good manner and we shall continue the talks till the final victory of the people and their rights and with their support,” he said.

Last week, Zarif spent days in Vienna holding talks with the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany aimed at finding a ”comprehensive” formula to end Tehran’s nuclear issue. Both sides said the talks were fruitful and constructive.

But despite these, some Majlis representatives who are close to the hardline conservative principlist group continue to criticize the government over the talks and its claims regarding the talks. They assert that the Geneva agreement was in fact a retreat by the Islamic republic. Rouhani used his trip to the south to reject their claims. “The rights of our nation are preserved. The government shall not retreat a step in its efforts to protect the rights of the nation,” he said.

Some observers have said that the remarks that the US representative at the talks, Wendy Sherman, made helped him to hit at the domestic hardline critics. Last Tuesday, while visiting Israel she “Washington was ready to recognize a limited enrichment right for Iran. IN the final agreement with Tehran, Iran shall have a limited and supervised right of enrichment.”

But senators in the US Senate continued their drive to pass another sanctions resolution against the Islamic regime even though Harry Reed has opposed new sanctions at this time.

Raja News Criticises Defending Mousavian

While many hope that the current talks between Iran and the West will resolve the twelve year nuclear stand off, Raja News website continues to verbally attack diplomats who are close to Rouhani. It recently published remarks by Hossein Mousavian, the nuclear talks negotiator during Khatami’s presidency and criticized them. Mousavian had said that no Iranian could have obtained any more from the nuclear talks in Geneva than what Iran got. Raja News said that Iran’s counterparts in the talks got the bigger benefits and that what Iran got was a suspension and some billion Dollars of frozen assets. During the June 2013 presidential elections in Iran Raja News supported Saeed Jalili, the country’s top negotiator in Ahmadinejad’s administration which made no progress in the talks with the West.

Nine Questions for Zarif

Mehr News agency reported that last Tuesday the Majlis committee on national security questioned Zarif about the country’s foreign policy and concluded, “Zarif failed to convince any of his critics.” He was asked about  a slew of issues that included the meeting that Iran’s former imprisoned lawyer Nasrin Sotudeh and movie director Jaafar Panahi had with European Union members, Zarif’s expression that Tehran did not have the might to military confront the United States, the foreign minister’s weak approach towards Israel and the Holocaust, among others.