TEHRAN
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has voiced support for a possible nuclear deal with Western powers, but at the same time also warned that he will not back a “bad deal.”
Negotiations between Iran and the P5 +1 powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – over the country's nuclear ambitions have been ongoing for months. Recently, the talks were postponed for the second time and the deadline was extended to July 1 for a final agreement.
“I agree with the deal that may take place, but I do not agree with a bad deal,” Khamenei tweeted.
In another tweet, he said that Iran agreed with the U.S. that no deal was better than a bad deal. “No deal is better than a deal that’s against our nation’s interests,” he said.
The supreme leader also supported Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s view that “negotiation means the two sides reach common points,” not just what Westerners wanted.
He tweeted that Iran had temporarily stopped 20 percent of its nuclear enrichment at the Arak and Fordow plants in the interest of reaching a deal with the world powers' group, but regretted that “the other side is still asking for concessions.”
He also said that Iranian negotiators were trying to thwart sanctions on their country. “If they succeed, so much the better, but if not, there’re other ways to make sanctions ineffective,” he tweeted.
He called for the agreement to be transparent and free from interpretations.
Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reiterated that Iran was willing to reach a permanent nuclear deal with western powers at the 51nd Security Conference in the German city of Munich Sunday.
Zarif stressed that Iran believed that some important progress had been achieved.
World powers suspect that Iran was seeking to obtain nuclear weapons – a claim dismissed by Tehran, which insists that its nuclear program was intended solely for civilian use such as generating electricity.
