TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Ambassador to Paris Ali Ahani said that Iran has entered the nuclear talks in Geneva with a proposed package, and urged the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) to seize the opportunity and find a diplomatic solution to their standoff with Iran.


“The success of the Geneva meeting depends on preparedness and political will of Group 5+1, and as I can see this readiness exists in the Iranian delegation,” Ahani said in an interview with Radio France International on Tuesday.

Iran and the world powers held a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York in September and decided to meet again in Geneva on October 15-16.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, heading a high-ranking delegation, left Tehran for Geneva on Monday.

After the first session of talks Tuesday morning, Michael Mann, the spokesman for Catherine Ashton, announced the "cautious optimism" of the Group 5+1 towards the new round of talks with Iran, and said Tehran has presented its package of proposals to the world powers in the Tuesday morning session of the negotiations.

"We hope that Iran will move forward with a constructive approach and that the negotiations will progress as soon as possible," Mann told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

"We have entered the talks with cautious optimism and we are waiting for tangible results," he added.

Mann said that Iran has introduced its package of proposals in a powerpoint presentation at the beginning of the negotiations this morning.

Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.

By Fars News Agency

 

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