Tehran, Iran, Oct. 20
By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend:
An Iranian member of parliament quoted top Iranian nuclear negotiator as saying that the U.S. agreed with leaving 4,000 active centrifuges at Iran's uranium enrichment plants.
Javad Karimi Goddousi told Mehr News Agency.
Abbas Araqchi, head of Iran's nuclear delegation with P5+1, said during a meeting with the National Security and International Relations Committee of Parliament that the U.S. was insisting on retention of only 1,300 active centrifuges in Iran, but during the latest talks, Washington agreed to 4,000.
Goddousi said on Oct.20 that Araqchi rejected the rumors about reaching final agreement with P5+1.
He quoted Araqchi as saying that elimination of imposed sanctions on Iran, as well as the amount of uranium enrichment remains as disputed topics in the nuclear talks with P5+1, including the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany.
The latest nuclear talks were held in Vienna last week.
The P5+1 political directors held talks, alongside tripletail negotiation between Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Oct. 16. Before that, the previous round of nuclear talks between Iran and the 5+1 group were held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month in New York.
The West wants Iran to have single-digit thousands of active centrifuges, meaning it would take Tehran a long time to use them for producing high-level enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Tehran, who has 19,000 centrifuges (9,400 of them are active), has rejected reducing the number of active enrichment machines.
Iran and the P5+1 group sealed an interim deal for a six-month period in Geneva on November 23, 2013.
Under the deal, dubbed the Geneva Joint Plan of Action, the six countries undertook to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities.
The deal took effect on Jan. 20 and was extended on July 20 until Nov. 24 to reach a permanent deal on Iran's disputed nuclear program.