Vienna, Jul 6, IRNA -- A final comprehensive nuclear agreement can be seen as the first 'acid test' for prospects of better ties between
Washington and Tehran, according to US journalist Gareth Porter who is specializing in US national security policy.

Talking to IRNA in Vienna, Porter stressed the nuclear accord could be a first real test to see whether the US government is actually willing to

abandon its hostile policy against Iran.

The deep mistrust between both countries can only overcome gradually. In the first stage, the US has to back away from the efforts that it has made to hold on to the sanctions. I agree this is the primary fear that the Iranians have. That the US is not really willing to

give up sanctions. That they are constantly trying to figure out that how to hold on to some of the sanctions, Porter said.

So the first acid test clearly is the US letting go in this agreement and I think that it will go in a long way towards alleviating

that fear, he added.

The investigative reporter and historian urged the US administration to move away from this structure of US Iran policy that has been

holding Iran to be a terrorist state and blaming it as a primary troublemaker in the Middle East.

Porter acknowledged though he did not expect this policy change to happen any time soon, citing intense pressure by the Israel lobby

and the military industrial complex as well as what he called US national security bureaucracy who have their own vested interests

in the status quo.

Iran's bogeyman image is being used as a justification for it. So they are just not giving up that justification lightly, added Porter.

Asked about prospects for a final Iranian nuclear deal, the American reporter said, an agreement could be a 'win-win situation' for

all sides, even though according to Porter, the US may want to portray itself as the ultimate winner of the talks.

They (Americans) will try to create the illusion that they have prevailed in the negotiations which of course is a myth, he added.

Porter predicted US-Iranian relations won't really improve in the near future, even if an agreement is reached.

Prospects for somehow normalized US-Iranian relations 'don't look too good in the short-run'.

It will probably somehow a sort of conflict management between both countries, he said.

By IRNA