Iran ready to meet concerns over nuclear programme

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underlined Tehran's readiness to remove the West's alleged concerns about its peaceful nuclear program. Speaking at a meeting with visiting Chairman of the French Senate’s Finance Committee Philippe Marini on Sunday, the top Iranian diplomat pointed to Tehran’s ongoing nuclear talks with the six major world powers, saying that Iran is ready to help remove “the legitimate concerns of the other side” regarding the country’s nuclear program. “France, considering its position in the European Union, could play a positive and important role in nuclear negotiations,” he said. Marini is in Tehran at the head of a French parliamentary delegation. On February 22, 2012, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said the Iran considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons "a grave sin" from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint. Earlier this month, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for legal and international affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi confirmed that Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) plan to hold an expert-level meeting in New York early in May. Araqchi, who is also senior Iranian negotiator in talks with the Sextet, said negotiations will be held from May 5-9 on the sidelines of a session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The Iranian official said the talks will take place a few days ahead of the new round of high-level negotiations between Tehran and the six countries, which is scheduled to be held in the Austrian city of Vienna on May 13. Deputy chief negotiators from Iran and the six world powers (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) wrapped up their second day of talks in Vienna on April 9. The talks were headed by Araqchi and EU foreign policy deputy chief Helga Schmidt. The talks started on April 8 by a session presided by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the UN headquarters in Vienna, and continued by a meeting among the deputy chief negotiators of the seven nations. The Iranian Foreign Ministry in a statement on April 8 reiterated that its team of negotiators would not discuss any topic but the country's nuclear standoff with the West in its talks with the six world powers, including the present round in Vienna. The talks between Tehran and the six world powers are part of efforts to seal a final deal on Iran’s nuclear energy program. Iran and the Group 5+1 representatives had several sessions of talks in Vienna on March 18-19. On November 24, Iran and the Group 5+1 sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over the latter's nuclear energy program. In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the Sextet of the world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and impose no nuclear-related sanctions on Iran during the six-month period.