In an interview to Mehr News, Dr. Zibakalam said that “we could not say that nuclear talks have failed totally; I may use the metaphor of a group of mountaineers who have faced a relatively impassable block of hard rock.”
“Two factors contribute to this hard rock which has made progress very difficult; the first is western demand who wants to see Iran’s nuclear capability dwindled, so that whenever Iran decides to make a nuclear weapon, they would have enough time to decide accordingly,” Zibakalam said, “so, if Iran (west conceived) operates 10,000 centrifuges, it would take little time to achieve a bomb-grade enriched uranium,” he added.
Zibakalam said that west believed that Iran should have reduced the number of its centrifuges and the percentage of enrichment. “This is the main demand by the Powers made during the negotiations as the first priority,” said the University of Tehran professor.
“On the other hand, removal of sanctions in shortest of time is Iran’s demand, possibly within 5 years, whereas westerners may talk of a long time, 15-20 years. Other issues are mere details,” he said. “I would not assume that negotiations have failed. The metaphor matters here again,” Zibakalam asserted.
He believed that despite the slow nature of negotiations, “Iran and Powers are serious in their job. Asked which side would be benefited the most by the six-month deadline, Zibakalam told Mehr News that definitely it was not Iran to be benefited, since “sanctions have paralyzed the Iran’s already diseased economy; production in Iran has came to a grinding halt; our international relations have been reduced to China, North Korea and some few countries.”
Zibakalam said that west had come to a conclusion that Iran was serious in negotiations and that Iran understood that they would not seek a regime change in Iran, and only concern being Iran’s nuclear program. “Both sides face tough decisions. For west, this is to remove sanctions in a short interval,” he added.
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