The third round started after bilateral talks between the head of the Iranian delegation Saeed Jalili as well as the Russian and Chinese envoys at the talks and the lead negotiator for the P5+1, Catherine Ashton.
Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1) agreed to hold another round of talks in Moscow on June 18-19.
Press TV talks with Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, to shed more light on the issue.
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Some western sources suggest that the P5+1 have proposed Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent and that is in return for future sanctions. Is it a fair offer? Do you think Tehran will accept it?
Marandi: Definitely not. It is wishful thinking on behalf of Western powers and I think it also shows that Western powers are quite irrational in their approach to non-Western countries.
They seem to think that other countries have to abide by their wishes and divide the world between first-class citizens and second-class citizens.
Iran is not going to accept being a country of second-class citizens and therefore what Iran has said from the start, I assume, is what the Iranians will continue to pursue and that is equal rights, the same sort of rights that the so-called economically developed countries have.
Iran will have demands to have those rights. Ashton had affectively agreed to this in the first round in Istanbul when she said that the 5+1 accepts Iran’s rights within the framework of the NPT.
That is exactly what Iran wants and that includes enriching uranium to 20 percent.
Press TV: And we are looking at history here; the P5+1 has been known, regarding that Tehran Declaration, if you remember, [for] torpedoing its deals with Iran, which was agreed upon by Turkey and Brazil in terms of their involvement and that was at the behest of Washington. Do you think that this time around, P5+1 is serious in these talks?
Marandi: That is the whole problem. The Iranians from the very start were not even planning to enrich uranium at 20 percent. They were planning to import it.
But Western powers tried to prevent Iran from obtaining the fuel and thus putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iranian patients at risk. They were playing with Iranians’ lives.
Iran, to show the West that they will not bow down to them and that they will not allow the people to be taken hostage, said we will enrich our own uranium. They did; they made an investment; they produced enriched uranium at 20 percent and they have also made fuel rods which they installed just yesterday into the Tehran reactor.
This is a major investment on behalf of the Iranians and there is no reason why the Iranians should give it up; and within the framework of the NPT, the Iranians have every right to enrich uranium at 20 percent; 5 percent and 20 percent, there is no difference between the two.
At the end of the day, what the Iranians want is their rights within the framework of the NPT and the removal of all the sanctions. Western powers will definitely play hardball but the Iranians have rights; they have made many sacrifices and they are not going to give up their rights as a sovereign and independent country.
MSK/HJL
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