TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran on Tuesday urged the P5+1 group of world powers to recognize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear rights and take confidence-building measures with Tehran in order to prove their sincerity in talks with Tehran.
“The 5+1 group must recognize our country’s nuclear rights and take measures to prove they have stopped their enmity against our nation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in his weekly press conference.
He reiterated that the Islamic Republic will use its nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes and the development of the country.
Pointing to the recent round of the talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) in Kazakhstan, the Iranian official said the outcome of the talks depends on the actions of the group.
Iran and the P5+1 wrapped up their latest round of negotiations on April 6 in Almaty.
For future talks to make any headway, Mehmanparast called for “a clear and transparent prospective” which would ultimately recognize Iran's rights.
The spokesman said the concerns and claims raised during the talks would also be resolved through mutual steps, provided that they are undertaken simultaneously and identically, in terms of weight and substance.
Mehmanparast further noted that all issues must be thoroughly defined during the talks so that both sides would feel they are moving towards a final resolution in a setting that is reasonable and logical.
He said the main reason that the talks between the two sides did not produce any results in the past was the unreasonable demands made by the P5+1 group while expecting Iran to take “reciprocal” action that was really not at all comparable to the sort of demands they were making.
Mehmanparast reiterated that despite the unreasonable attitude demonstrated by Western members of the group in the past, the Iranian side always entered the talks with a positive attitude.
The spokesman also dismissed U.S.-led sanctions against the Islamic Republic as an illegal and futile effort to pressure the Iranian nation to lose motivation to participate in the upcoming presidential election process.
He reasoned that a strong turnout in the election would further enhance the position of the Islamic Republic in its international relations and conduct.
Inspection of Iranian Plane
Mehmanparast branded Iraq's inspection of an Iranian aircraft as "unacceptable," saying it had protested to Baghdad following the first search.
The spokesman said the move is in line with "an Iranophobia project sponsored by the United States, Western countries and the Zionist regime and certain regional countries.
"The searching of the cargo once again showed that these accusations are unfounded," he added.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office said Iraq grounded and inspected a second Iranian aircraft bound for Syria in as many days, but found only humanitarian materiel.
The back-to-back searches come after Baghdad said last month it would step up such inspections, after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry publicly accused Iraq of turning a blind eye to Iranian flights which Washington claims carry military equipment for the Damascus regime.
"Iraqi authorities inspected an Iranian cargo plane operated by the company Mahan Air, but only found humanitarian goods," Maliki's spokesman Ali al-Mussawi told AFP.
On Monday, a flight operated by the same private Iranian airline was stopped and searched, with inspectors finding only medical supplies.
