Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 27
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Just days after extension of the interim nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1, Iran's highest official Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says he is not against extending the nuclear accord.
Khameni praised Iran's nuclear negotiation team saying, "Iran's nuclear team is really active and serious, they resist and never give up against force", Khamenei's official website Khamenei.ir reported on Nov. 27.
P5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council comprising of China, France, Russia, Britain, the US Plus Germany) and Iran failed to conclude a comprehensive agreement on guarantees of the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program by November 24 and the procedure for lifting the sanctions against Tehran. They prolonged the negotiations on this issue until the end of June.
Khamenei said that P5+1 members, especially the U.S. takes "irrational" positions and every day "says a new word". "The U.S. is keen to use the nuclear talks with Iran as a tool for resolving its domestic problems, in private talks and letters it says one thing, but in public Washington says another thing," he noted.
Khameni said that the U.S. is " the vilest" and the UK is "the most insidious" among all P5+1 members".
Iran and P5+1 sealed an interim deal in Geneva on November 24, 2013 to pave the way for the full resolution of the West's decade-old dispute with Iran over the country's nuclear energy program.
The Geneva deal took effect on January 20 and expired on July 20. However the two sides agreed to extend their talks for four months until Nov. 24, but after failing to reach a permanent deal, they agreed to extend the interim record by 7 months.
In exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the US and its allies agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran.