[caption id="attachment_25679" align="alignright" width="180"] US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gives a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem, April 23, 2013.[/caption]
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham strongly refuted the recent remarks by US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who said Iran has been forced to resume talks with the six world powers due to Israel’s pressures.


Hagel claimed on Monday that Israel’s threats have forced Iran to take part in talks with the Group 5+1 (the US, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany). “I think that Iran is responding to the constant pressure from Israel, knowing that Israel believes them to be an existential threat,” Bloomberg quoted Hagel as saying.

“These statements indicate wrong presumptions; their assumption that Iran has sat to the negotiating table due to pressures is a wrong and baseless deduction,” Afkham told a weekly press briefing on Tuesday.

She reminded Iranian President Rouhani's strategy for having constructive interaction with the world, and reiterated that Iran’s seriousness and moves have not been the result of pressures, but the strategy.

“We call on the American officials to move towards realism and correct understanding of information about developments and approaches,” she added.

The last meeting between the top negotiators of Iran and the six world powers was in Geneva and lasted for two days on October 15 and 16.

Both Tehran and the delegations of the G5+1 voiced satisfaction in the outcomes of the Geneva meeting and decided to send their experts to two days of talks in Vienna on October 30 and 31 to discuss details of Iran's new proposal for soothing the crisis.

Iran and the six world powers agreed in their third session of talks on October 15 to follow up on the nuclear negotiations on November 7 and 8.

At the end of the negotiations, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton hailed the nuclear negotiations as the “most detailed” and most “substantive” ones ever held between the two sides.

By Fars News Agency

 

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