Tehran, Iran, May 11
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who is also the country's second most senior nuclear negotiator, said that Iran and the group 5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) have so far written 20 pages of a final agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
The pages cover issues related to nuclear activities, removal of sanctions, and the related time table, he said.
Araqchi's statements were quoted by MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, spokesman for the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who was commenting on a committee session where Araqchi was also present, ICANA news agency reported May 11.
The Iranian diplomat further stated that a difficult path remains ahead and there are differences in some issues between the negotiating parties.
A day earlier Head of Iran Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi had said that although the talks were progressing well, the Western parties had backed out on some of the promises they had given earlier.
Hosseini also quoted Araqchi as having said that no one can inspect Iran's military sites.
Refraining to reject the probability of inspection of military sites, Araqchi had in a televised interview said May 5 that the inspections are regulated by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Also, Iran Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrooz Kamalvandi said May 8 that in the course of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA, nothing as inspection of the country's military sites had been discussed.
But Iran has defined some framework for information and access as a response to a request by Western countries, he had said.
These statements come at a time when Iranian officials had previously said that the inspection of military sites was among the red lines for the Islamic Republic.
Deputy Commander of the IRGC Hossein Salami for example had said April 18 that Iran would answer inspection of its military sites with "hot lead".