Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the three rounds of indirect talks with the U.S. have revolved solely around nuclear issues and the removal of sanctions against Tehran, Tasnim reported yesterday. He stressed to reporters after the talks on April 26 that Iran will only negotiate the nuclear subject in exchange for the termination of sanctions.
Araghchi said that the most recent round of negotiations were “much more serious” than the previous rounds as the parties started discussions on details and technical issues in the presence of experts. He said although differences remain on macroscale topics, the two sides were serious in the Muscat talks, which created an atmosphere of “cautious hopefulness.”
Expressing satisfaction with the course of the talks, Araqchi said the U.S. appears to have determination. “I am cautiously hopeful that we can reach a result.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has determination, too, declaring that the resolution of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program ends in only one way: the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, as in “ the Libya model.”
“Dismantle all the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear program,” Netanyahu said in a speech yesterday, reported the Times of Israel. “That is a deal we can live with.” If the two sides agree on more lenient deal, he claimed, Iran will simply run out the clock and wait for the end of Donald Trump’s term. “A bad deal is worse than no deal,” he argued, repeating his position that the “only good deal” would be one modeled on the deal that Libya agreed to in 2003. And everybody knows, including the Iranians, what happened to Qaddafi a few years later.
