DUBAI - Iran is ready to resolve all nuclear issues in the next round of talks with world powers if the West starts lifting sanctions, its foreign minister said on Monday.
In an interview with the Iranian student news agency ISNA, Ali Akbar Salehi also hinted that Iran could make concessions on its higher-grade uranium enrichment, a key concern of Western powers.
“If the West wants to take confidence-building measures it should start in the field of sanctions because this action can speed up the process of negotiations reaching results,” Salehi was quoted as saying.
“If there is goodwill, one can pass through this process very easily and we are ready to resolve all issues very quickly and simply and even in the Baghdad meeting,” he added, referring to a second round of talks with world powers scheduled to take place in the Iraqi capital on May 23. Salehi described an initial meeting with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany in Istanbul on Saturday as positive and constructive.
The talks had been stalled for more than a year during which time the United States and the European Union tightened sanctions on Iran which they suspect is seeking nuclear weapons capability, a charge Tehran denies. Salehi said Iran would always assert its right to process uranium for peaceful purposes but that there might be room for a compromise on higher-level enrichment.
“Enrichment is Iran’s right but we can negotiate on how we obtain uranium with different enrichment levels,” he said.
“Making 20 percent (enriched nuclear) fuel is our right as long as it provides for our reactor needs and there is no question about that,” he said, but added: “If they guarantee that they will provide us with the different levels of enriched fuel that we need, then that would be another issue.”
Iran says it needs uranium enriched to a purity of 20 percent to fuel a medical research reactor, but many countries see its enrichment to that level a dangerous step towards the 90 percent enrichment needed for an atomic bomb.
A deal tentatively agreed with the West in 2009 would have seen Iran exporting some of its lower enriched uranium in return for fuel for the medical reactor. The deal unravelled and diplomats on both sides have said it would need to be modified in any future agreement.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said Sunday that nothing had been “given away” to Iran at weekend nuclear talks in Istanbul, warning Tehran that the clock was still ticking to reach an accord. Obama’s comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his “initial impression is that Iran has been given a ‘freebie’” at a first round of key talks with world powers over its disputed nuclear program.
“The clock is ticking and I’ve been very clear to Iran and our negotiating partners that we’re not going to have these talks just drag out in a stalling process,” Obama told reporters after an Americas summit in Colombia.
“But so far at least we haven’t given away anything - other than the opportunity for us to negotiate,” he said.
At Saturday’s talks in Istanbul, during which Iranian officials sat down with the so-called P5+1 grouping of diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the sides agreed to hold a more in-depth meeting in Baghdad on May 23.
Officials described the talks as positive but stressed that a great deal was expected of the Islamic republic at the next meeting.
Netanyahu - whose government has not ruled out a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities - earlier said however that Tehran had simply bought itself some extra time to comply.
“My initial impression is that Iran has been given a ‘freebie’,” Netanyahu said during talks with visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman, the premier’s office reported.
“It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all enrichment, take out all enrichment material and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom,” he said.
“I believe that the world’s greatest practitioner of terrorism must not have the opportunity to develop atomic bombs,” he said.
But Obama refuted that statement, saying “The notion that we’ve given something away or a freebie would indicate that Iran has gotten something.”
“In fact, they got the toughest sanctions that they’re going to be facing coming up in a few months if they don’t take advantage of those talks. I hope they do,” Obama said.
The UN Security Council has slapped four rounds of sanctions on Tehran over suspicions harbored by Israel and much of the West that Iran is seeking a militarized nuclear capability - a charge which Tehran denies.