MNA � Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif told The New Yorker that any prospect for talks with US hinges on a relationship based on some �foundations�, saying that Iran is waiting for some sense of �realism�.







Speaking to The New Yorker on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif compared diplomacy with the United States to the 2004 movie �50 First Dates,� about a man who keeps having first dates with a woman who has short-term memory loss and forgets him the next day.

�We live in a world of possibilities, so nothing is impossible, but we need to see,� he said. �First of all, we�re not angry. Now, if it�s going to lead to resolution, you need to be able to build on what you already have, because, I mean, you remember the movie �50 First Dates,� when you start all over again the following day. We can�t. This is impossible. You need to be able to have a relationship that is based on some foundations. And we have a document��the nuclear deal��that is a hundred and fifty pages long. It's not a two-page document.�

�I�m not ruling out the prospect of talks provided the necessary conditions for talks, and that is reliability,� Zarif said. �Reliability is different from trust. Reliability is that when you sign something you are bound by it.�Pacta sunt servanda�is the old idiom, the basis of international relations.� (It�translates, from Latin, as �treaties shall be complied with.�) �Otherwise everything will fall apart,� he said. �We are waiting for some sense of realism.�

The New Yorker also quoted Iranian President Rouhani as saying in response to �internal pressure� that �I have no regrets. I am not sorry. We reached a positive point.� He added that Iran had �proved to the world� that it was �willing to sit around the table,� negotiate, and then comply when it signed an accord.