Agencies
Paris

Iran is ready to resume nuclear enrichment “without any limitations” unless sanctions are totally and immediately removed at the end of negotiations, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said yesterday.  
Speaking to TV channel Euronews in Lisbon, Zarif said: “We can have the path of confrontation or we can have the path of co-operation, we cannot have a little bit of each.”
“If we take the path of confrontation, the US and the UN will continue with their sanctions, and Iran will continue with its enrichment programme. Without any limitations,” Zarif said.
“Unfortunately the United States started... using the phrase ‘phased sanctions’,” Zarif added.
“If you go through the joint statement you will not even see the word ‘suspension’ and you will not see the word ‘phase’. It’s clear that all sanctions, all economic and financial sanctions will be terminated.”
Global powers reached a framework agreement for a nuclear deal with Iran on April 2.  
They must now resolve a series of technical issues by a June 30 deadline for a final deal, including the steps for lifting sanctions on Iran, and remaining questions over the possible military dimensions of its nuclear programme.
Zarif told Euronews that there were discrepancies between the framework agreement and the “fact-sheet” released by the United States to explain what had been decided.
“On the day that we agree we will go to the Security Council and the Security Council will adopt a resolution which will terminate all the previous resolutions and will set the stage for termination of all sanctions. This is very clear, there won’t be phased, there won’t be suspensions, it is very clear in the agreement that we announced.” he told Euronews.
He said negotiations were at times difficult because Western powers had “come to believe that sanctions were an asset, were something that they should not relinquish so easily”.
“Now we start the difficult part, the difficult path of negotiating and writing the final agreement,” said Zarif.
In Washington, US President Barack Obama said yesterday a bill allowing Congress to review a deal with Iran was a “reasonable compromise” he planned to sign, and he expressed confidence it would not derail talks with Tehran.
Obama told a White House news conference that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Bob Corker and the panel’s leading Democrat, Ben Cardin, had agreed they would protect the bill from “poison pills” amendments that would be tilted toward trying to kill an agreement with Iran.
Since the White House said on Tuesday that Obama would sign the bill, it has sought to reassure anxious negotiating partners.
“The final product that emerged out of the Corker-Cardin negotiations, we believe, will not derail the negotiations,” Obama said. “Assuming that what lands on my desk is what Senators Corker and Cardin agreed to, I will sign it.”
After initially opposing congressional intervention, Obama conceded that lawmakers would have the power to review an agreement with Iran after Republicans and Democrats crafted a rare compromise measure. The White House had been concerned that the bill would undermine efforts to reach a final pact with Iran by the end of June. A framework deal was reached on April 2.
Obama played down the differences with Iran on how fast sanctions would be lifted, saying, “Our main concern here is making sure that if Iran doesn’t abide by its agreement, that we don’t have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops in order to reinstate sanctions.”
Regarding Russian plans to deliver missile-defence systems to Iran, which it had put on hold after a request from the United States, Obama said he was not surprised.
President Vladimir Putin, whose own government is under strict economic sanctions for Russia’s involvement in unrest in Crimea and Ukraine, earlier this week removed the ban on supplying Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defence missile systems.
“I’m not surprised, given some of the deterioration in the relationship between Russia and the United States, and the fact that their economy’s under strain and this was a substantial sale,” Obama said.

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