VIENNA: Iran and major nations have a ‘historic opportunity’ to settle their decade-old nuclear dispute, but requiring the Islamic state to stop higher-grade uranium enrichment would be discriminatory, Tehran’s former chief nuclear negotiator said.
Hossein Mousavian, now a visiting scholar at Princeton University in the United States, voiced optimism before next month’s talks between Iran and the six major powers following a first meeting in Istanbul earlier this month.
They should set out their respective ‘red lines’ regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and negotiate on the basis of those when they meet in the Iraqi capital on May 23, he told Reuters.
‘The positive trend has started from Istanbul. It is important to keep up the positive trend in Baghdad and to go on,’ Mousavian, who was seen as a moderate when in the Iranian government, said by telephone on Tuesday.
He was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 before conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over from his reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami. According to Western envoys familiar with Mousavian, he appeared at the time to be genuinely interested in reaching a deal with the West.
The six powers – the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia – want to make sure Iran does not develop nuclear bombs. The Islamic Republic wants a lifting of sanctions and recognition of what it says are its rights to peaceful nuclear energy, including enriching uranium.
‘The principles should be based on addressing the red lines of each party,’ Mousavian said.(UNI)