Baku, Azerbaijan, May 5
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
The lifelong inspections of Iran's nuclear sites is not something abnormal, the country's senior nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi believes.
He made the remarks, responding to US Secretary of State John Kerry's recent comments that there have to be lifelong inspections of Iran nuclear sites.
On May 2, Kerry said that the president Barack Obama administration would abide by its pledge to deny Iran a nuclear weapon.
"We will have inspectors in there every single day," Kerry said. "That's not a 10-year deal. That's forever. There have to be inspections."
"I do not think that is a weird and abnormal thing. That is one of the principles of NPT. Countries which join the NPT can have access to peaceful nuclear energy, and in return, they accept inspections under the treaty," Araghchi said in response to Kerry's comments, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on May 5.
Araghchi added one of the main demands of the Iranian side is "to lift all financial and economic sanctions promptly" after the agreement is finalized.
Meanwhile, drafting the text of Iran-P5+1 comprehensive nuclear agreement is moving forward, the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted May 4.
Iranian top diplomat called the drafting "hard work" and emphasized that many brackets (disputed issues in the text is written inside brackets) still exist.
Zarif further said that the Islamic Republic is determined to end this "manufactured crisis" and open new horizons.
The initial drafting of the Iran and the P5+1(the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) agreement text started on April 22.